The first to recover was Luz, who immediately jumped up and consequently almost ended up in the water again; as soon as she was able to find something similar to a balance (meaning the kind of balance that a person would have after having downed at least twenty mugs of beer in a row) she gave a few blows on Amity's back, who was coughing since who had drunk a lot of water. Luz bit her lip as she saw Amity soaked and covered in flour and who knows what other disgusting things; considering all the attention the mint-haired girl put into her appearance, it was likely that she would freak out as soon as she looked in the mirror. Luz had a feeling that this time she would actually try to kill her. Not that she was in much better shape: even though she had cleaned herself as best she could, she could clearly feel the sticky flour spread in her hair. But that wasn't the time to think about their physical appearance, so she looked towards Otabin's boat, from which the smell of frying oil was already coming. "We must do something!" she exclaimed. "Our friends will be fried alive!"
"We can't do anything at all. We're not warriors" Amity replied as she struggled to her feet. "Let's go out and call Lilith and your fairy, and maybe even your blond friend with the magic staff. They will kick that crazy fisherman's butt, better than us for sure"
"We'll never make it, the exit is under water" Luz retorted. "And what's more, it opens inwards. Even if we reach it, it will be impossible to do so with the weight of the water on us. It would be a miracle to be able to open a crack for a couple of seconds"
Amity reflected and agreed that what the puppet said was indeed true. Unfortunately the door to the forbidden section had closed as soon as Slitherbeast had arrived, probably because the dog had hit the doors, and with the weight of the water it was now impossible to open it. "Then... then let's take advantage of the fact that Otabin is distracted and reach the book! All we need to do is close it to get rid of him"
"It's too far away! Before we can reach it our friends will be cooked!" Luz protested. "We have to go and help them!"
Amity glared at her. "And how? Do you have an idea about how take down a being at least three times bigger than us?"
Luz bit her lip. She knew Amity had logic on her side: what hope did the two of them have of defeating a giant like Otabin? Not to mention that Luz wasn't exactly good at thinking, so asking her if she had an idea was like asking Amity if she had blonde hair. "Well, no... but what options do we have? Even just distracting him a little will buy our friends time! Amity, you're the smartest girl in the school and that I've ever met: if you think about it carefully, I'm sure you'll find one way to fix this mess!"
"A mess that YOU made" Amity reminded her in a very sour voice.
Luz clenched her fists and her body trembled slightly. "Yes, I know! I admit it, it's all my fault! I did everything wrong, as usual!" she exclaimed in a strangled voice. "Amity, listen… I'm sorry I stole your key and I'm sorry I got you in trouble. I wish I could say it wasn't such a big deal but we both know it is. I'm ready to face your wrath as soon as we get out from here, you can slap me all you want, but now we have to cooperate! Over there are your friends and, even if unique in their kind, also your siblings! So please, use your skills and find a solution!"
Although Amity maintained a grim look throughout Luz's apologies, the light in her eyes visibly changed. When the puppet was done, she turned her head in a random direction, trying to avoid eye contact, and she wrapped a hand tightly around one arm as if trying to keep herself from saying anything. She did so for a couple of sdcond, and then she let out a long sigh and looked back at Luz. "Okay, let's look for a solution. But know that I hold you directly responsible for anything that will happen to us!"
"Don't worry, I know very well that I am the only one responsible. You are right to consider me so" Luz replied in a very low voice. For the second time the light in Amity's eyes changed, and this time her expression also became more doubtful and less angry, and again she seemed to want to say something... but then she pressed her lips together so tightly that she almost hurt herself, as if she wanted to stop her voice from coming out.
The two girls jumped from one shelf to another and got as close to Otabin's boat as possible without being seen; fortunately the numerous floating pieces of furniture offered good cover and the fisherman didn't notice them. As soon as they were close enough, Amity began to analyze the situation in hopes of finding a solution. "Mh... that fisherman uses his nets to catch us every time. For some reason he just needs to throw them to trap us. Maybe they are magical, or he simply has a good technique. So if we managed to separate him from his nets, he could no longer catch us. At that point we would just have to swim as fast as possible and close the magic book. After all, he doesn't seem to know how to swim, and by rowing he will certainly travel more slowly than us who swim or run on the shelves"
Luz nodded. As she had imagined, Amity had immediately managed to identify the best course of action to take in that context; she wasn't the top of the class for nothing after all. Now it was her turn to use a little inventiveness; after all, she couldn't let the mint-haired girl do all the work. "Look, there's an overhead hook there that serves as a pulley for the larger nets; you're very athletic, so... if you would jump from there and kicked Otabin, and he would be on the edge of the boat, you would unbalance him enough to send him into the water. Maybe he will be able to get back to the boat sooner or later, but we will have enough time to free our friends and destroy the nets"
Amity swallowed. She didn't like that plan at all. "Well... it could work... very hypothetically..."
"Well, let's do it then!" Luz said. "I get on board and lure him to the edge of the boat, as soon as you see an opportunity jump and hit him! Once he falls into the water we burn all his nets, and that's it!"
"It's easier said than done" Amity grumbled, totally unconvinced.
"Maybe. But do you have a better idea?" Luz asked back.
Amity clenched her fists in tension and irritation. "No. Let's do it!"
Meanwhile on the boat Otabin had prepared the frying pan again and had also put some salt and spices on Emira, Edric, Boscha and Skara. The four kids now seemed totally resigned to their fate. "Mph... so this is how we will die, cooked by a madman on a boat in the middle of an artificial lake created by a spell inside a library" Emira commented. "A unique and therefore special death, but at the same time decidedly sad"
"Well, at least we'll face it together, sweet sister" Edric told her with a smile.
Emira rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Basically, I've been stuck with you my whole life. Marvelous" she murmured, causing Edric to paint a look of despondency on his face.
Skara and Boscha were no exception either. "Skara, this is probably our end" the magenta-haired girl said. "So before we leave, I want you to know that you have been a wonderful friend!"
"Thank you, Boscha. I'm happy to have met you too!"
"Yeah. And since I won't have another chance, I have to tell you something..."
"And that is?"
"Last year, at the music competition... I was the one who broke your harp!"
"WHAT!? It was you!?"
"I'm sorry! I didn't do it on purpose, I just wanted to put it in a box so that it wouldn't get ruined but I accidentally dropped it..."
"I trained for months for that competition and you knew it! And I spent all the following months accusing the one who won first prize instead of me, when in reality it was always you!?"
"I know, I messed up. I'm sorry"
"And you're right to be sorry! Well... in this case, since we're telling each other everything..."
"What?"
"There is a secret that I have never told you and that I have been carrying inside me for some time..."
"Come on, tell me! We'll be dead in less than a minute anyway!"
"HEY, YOU STUPID BIG GREEN FISHERMAN!"
Luz's voice immediately attracted everyone's attention, cutting off any discussion; Edric, Emira, Boscha and Skara raised their heads as much as they could and saw very clearly that Luz had climbed onto one of the edges of the ship. "What is that crazy puppet doing?" Boscha murmured in confusion.
Otabin smiled with satisfaction as soon as he saw her. "Oh, what a joy! The puppet fish is back, and of her own free will!" he exclaimed as he hurriedly reached the edge of the ship to grab Luz, but she was very elusive and continued to escape him; Otabin began to get irritated, but in the end, thanks to his size, he managed to corner her: Luz found herself with him on one side and the lake on the other, with no possibility of going anywhere. Otabin was already cheering, but stopped when he saw that Luz was smirking; an instant later a scream was heard and two feet protected by very hard shoes hit the fisherman's back with great force, unbalancing him forward and making him fall into the water with a loud splash.
"Yay! Well done, Amity!" Luz exclaimed victoriously and raised her hand to give her a high five; in response, Amity was dumbfounded for a moment, and for a instant her hand seemed to raise slightly as if to reciprocate, but then she looked at her with disdain, as if to say 'stop acting like an idiot'. Luz lowered her hand a little disappointed, but then she heard a crystalline laugh ringing in the air; she looked up and discovered that the source of that beautiful sound was Amity, who had started laughing and wasn't doing it in jest at all, but in a totally genuine way. At that moment, Luz thought that Amity looked at least fifty times more beautiful than when she was trying to act perfect in everything, even though she didn't say it out loud.
"I'm sorry. It's just that you just made a really funny face, and I still have too much adrenaline in my body" Amity told her trying to regain her composure.
"Uh... no problem! I absolutely understand!" Luz was quick to say, though she did so in a slightly higher pitched voice than usual.
But after just a couple of seconds something happened that surprised her even more: Amity in fact didn't lose her smile, or at least not completely, and she said to her: "Anyway... you were brave. Crazy, but brave"
"Uh... um..." Luz didn't know how to respond. She never thought that one day Amity would pay her a compliment. "Well… you were too"
"You were the bait, and I know which role requires the most courage. Besides, you didn't hesitate" Amity said. "I'd say you've earned a little of my admiration"
A smile appeared on Luz's face. "Uh… are you going soft on me, Blight?" she asked her, winking playfully.
"Pff! In your dreams" Amity replied, even though she giggled when she said it. "I still think you're a bad girl without the slightest judgment or sense of opportunity, who lives in the world of fantasy and who can't distinguish what..."
"Hey, you two! If you're done chatting, we'd still be tied up here!" Emira shouted, getting their attention. She, Edric, Boscha and Skara were watching the whole thing from a short distance from a pan full of frying oil placed on a rather large fire, and they could clearly hear the heat and sizzling, so even though some of them thought it was bad to ruin the At the moment they thought it would still be better for someone to come and help them.
"Uh... right, sorry!" Amity and Luz said with a little shame in their voices. The two girls rushed to their friends and using some of Otabin's kitchen knives they very quickly cut the ropes and freed them all. "Come on, let's throw the nets into the fire!" Amity ordered the others. Within less than a minute, not a single rope remained in the entire ship, and when Otabin finally emerged from the water after an obvious great effort and discovered this he was rather dumbfounded.
"Ah ah! Now how do you get us without your weapon, dude?" Luz scoffed, sure that now all they had to do was jump into the water and swim to the magic book, and there was no way Otabin could stop them. But she was promptly contradicted when there was suddenly a flash of green light on the ship and new nets appeared in place of the old ones. "What!? But... we burned them!"
Amity broke out in a cold sweat. "It must be the magic of the book! The green fisherman must always remain so, and he cannot be a fisherman without his nets!"
"Great, so we can't deprive him of the nets!" Luz exclaimed as she backed away. "So what do we do now?"
"Now, all of you will be kind enough to let me cook and eat you" Otabin said with an evil laugh, but an instant later there was a bang and the fisherman was hit by a large white and golden object surrounded by a red aura, which it hit him in the sternum with such force that it instantly sent him to the other side of the boat. The object bounced off his chest and did a couple of somersaults in the air before landing on the deck of the boat, revealing itself to be a blond boy wrapped in a white cloak and holding a staff that glowed with red light, who didn't hold back from yelling: "Damn you, I left you guys alone for TEN MINUTES!"
"Hunter! Finally some help!" Luz exclaimed. She had never been happier to see that blond boy in her life.
Author: "Stay underwater"
Otabin: "What? But..."
Author: "We are losing viewers because there has still been too little progress in Lumity. Stay underwater so those two can talk to each other"
Otabin: "But that's completely unrealistic! Shouldn't I at least try to get back on the boat...?"
Author: "Stay underwater, I said!"
Otabin: "Ok, ok! Calm down, sir! But... how do I breathe?"
Author: "You are a magical creature, this is enough to justify everything!"
Otabin: "Yes, but in the story! I, as an actor, how do I do it?"
Author: "There are two oxygen tanks attached under the boat, make do with those and shut up"
Otabin: "With all due respect, sir, you are a bit of an exploiter"
Author: "Wow, you really changed my life! You think I don't know? You don't think you'll get to where I am without stepping on a few poor people, do you? Come on, get back to work, you cunt!"
Otabin: "Wait, but... why do you have an Australian accent...?"
Author: "Back to work, I said!"
Otabin: "Ok, ok. What a temper..."
