Just Do It.

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*Gen looked down at the lake, and then back at Arachnia and wondered what the catch was. Acid water, wyld beast guardian... his mind when on and an assessing possible scenarios.*

"That it?"

*He thought that if there were the remains of a structure under the water there may be other statues... he would just have to grab whichever one seemed most prominent or desirable. He walked down the hill to the waters edge and stared down at it looking for his own reflection in the gentle waves. He bent down and stuck his finger in it to test it's obvious properties.*

[Arachnia of the Hour]

Descending Fire 19,

*at his touch, the water hardened into frosty ice, the entire surface of the lake following suit. After less than a minute of being frozen the lake melted back again to its liquid state*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*Gen stood back up and looked over his shoulder at Arachnia, his face was like stone, expressionless by all comparison to his usual self. He turned back around and lowered himself to the ground sitting cross legged at the waters edge. He crossed one arm over his chest and propped his head up with the other. He sunk in and glowered at the pond wondering what influence exactly caused the water to shift it's elemental state. He looked around himself picked two stones from the beach, one a stone, and the other watermelon sized. First he tossed the small one into the lake to test if perhaps physical disturbance caused the water to react. At the same time he plucked a fleshy hair from his beard, and held it up to see which way the wind blew, and how hard. He looked up just as the pebble plopped into the center of the lake.

He waited to see what happened, hefting the larger rock ready to throw it if the lake started to freeze up again. With it he would attempt to see if the Rock broke through the ice and continued down unhindered.

If physical influence effected the water, why wasn't the wind changing it. The water must have had contact with wyld creatures and yet he didn't see any bodies. It seemed that the water didn't stay frozen for long, and perhaps his biological nature, body temperature or essence caused the change. The next question was... Did the lake freeze up to the depth of it's disturbance or only on it's surface when it was broken.*

[Arachnia of the Hour]

Descending Fire 19,


*When Gen looked at her, Arachnia kept the smile from her face and tried to keep the comments to herself. It mostly worked*

I never said it would be easy

*when Gen dropped the small rock into the water it plunked down and ripples passed like a wave in stadium stands, soft cheering could almost be heard. When he dropped the hair, it swirled left, then right with the gentle, erratic breeze*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*Gen ran his fingers down his beard braid three times, looking thoughtfully at the results of his experiment. He pushed the large rock that was previously sitting beside him and it rolled down the beach into the edge of the water. He held the hair from his beard an inch above the water and dropped it to be sure the wind wouldn't carry it away. He scratched his head sitting with his legs crossed under him he hadn't moved from his point of observation.

He looked around the beach for any potential building materials if it came down to it. Otherwise he was fairly sure his body could withstand the adverse effects of extreme cold without taking irreparable damage. His spirit species was also equipped with specialized gills for the occasion.

He watched to see if his hair or the large stone caused a reaction.*

[Arachnia of the Hour]

*The hair touched down on the top of the water and settled before sinking like a stone in the water. The boulder he moved displaced water like it would in Creation, and the water lapped gently once the ripples had ceased*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*Gen sighed, seeing that it seemed to be only his touch that caused the reaction with the wyld water. In a perfect world he would simply build a submersible to avoid direct contact with the water and theoretically he could pass through it uneffected... In a perfect world.

He would simply have to go to phase two of his experiment. This meant sticking his whole hand in the water and seeing what transpired, did the water return to normal after a short time? Or was the way the water froze out across the surface from his finger point origin indicative of a delay, or perhaps even a chance to outrun the freeze with enough speed. In which case it would be a one way trip and without the luxury of getting lost down there.

Gen reached out and attempted to run his fingers up to his knuckles through the water quickly back and forth trying not to follow the same path. Did the freeze lag behind, or would his hand instantly be caught in ice and if so for how long?

He grumbled to himself as he did this, knowing that Arachnia was probably judging him for what looked like 'playing with the water.'

[Arachnia of the Hour]

Descending Fire 19,


*The water froze almost instantly, a ripple sliding backward toward his hand until it had solidified around his fingers, securing his hand in place. The ice remained frozen over the top of the lake, though it ended just at the tips of his nails and he could feel that the very edges of his nails were warm despite the ice holding his hand captive*

*Arachnia kept her face expressionless as she watched Gen work this out. Rocks seemed to be a popular tool for budding Lunars these days. She thanked Luna that there were no doors around to cause trouble with. She was a patient woman, and standing still while she waited for him to figure it out or give up and ask her for help*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



"Then it's settled..."

*He stood up and yanked his hand attempting to free himself from the ice, but realized he couldn't. For a moment he stood there tugging, looking as if he were trying to pull a sword from a stone, he had never been a top athlete, and could even be described as a little chubby. He grumbled, thinking up a plan both to escape the ice and penetrate it.

So it was a matter of strength or speed, those were the easiest paths to take. Much like a plant, or perhaps even water Gen tended to follow the path of least resistance, it was perhaps the secret to his survival success. He could try to break through the ice layer and what would likely happen is that the water under that layer would then freeze. He though of a few ways he could try to plunge through the surface quickly enough to avoid being trapped in the ice and the easiest way to do that would be to take a smaller form that would take less time to get his body past the first three inches... At which point he didn't know if the water under that would demonstrate some other phenomena such as bursting into boiling water... or scalding steam.


"One way to find out..."

*Gen began sprouting brown speckled feathers and his face became a lethal looking beak. Both of his hands shrank and became dagger tipped talons in the blink of an eye he had become a large brown hawk beating it's wings to escape the finger holes before it iced over again.*

[Arachnia of the Hour]

Descending Fire 19,

*the ice continued to shrink around the Lunar's shifting form, clutching tighter to the smallest shape his fingers took; refusing to expand, like a constricting snake, to allow for any bulges or expansions that would make the hole larger, attempting to force its prey to stop struggling. Once the man became a hawk the ice settled, comfortable with the tips of his wings as its prey. Gen's wings were hobbled in its flapping before he managed to yank free, barely keeping his feathers intact as he got free*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*Mist sprayed from the tips of his wings, and his sharp eyes glowered down at the ice as he beat away and took flight above the lake waiting for it to thaw itself again, one thing seemed evident, this ice seemed tougher than normal, not surprising for wyld water.

His flight continued up, circling ever higher as if preparing to swoop in on his prey and when he had reached an altitude of about thirty five times his normal stature and the ice had returned to normal he brought his wings close to his body and plummeted at incredible speed to the surface of the pond and just as his form began shifting again. His skin flushed a dark brown, his back and chest bulged and his humanity was sucked down into a large spiky brown shell-fish. His transformation was complete ten feet from the water and he stayed tucked in the safety of his shell as he hurtled down like a cannon ball hoping to plunge deep in the water before it could ice him in again. Assuming he got through that he feared there were further dangerous aspects of the water below the immediate surface.*

[Arachnia of the Hour]

Descending Fire 19,

*As Gen hit the water the top 3 inches frosted over, barely missing him in its desperation to latch on. Once he was under the top layer the water was actually pretty warm, even tropical in temperature. The lake was surprisingly deep, parts of it dark and shadow-filled. Visibility was decent and the plants at the bottom of the lake were swaying gently as black, sharp crystal jutting out in lethal wait. Off in the distance he could see a large circle of unfocused shade, surrounded by a deep black ring*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*Gen poked his spiky head out of his shell as he sunk, followed by his webbed feet. His species of Mud Crab was equipped with small paddle like rear legs making him particularly good at swimming but he could also walk across the bottom just fine. Though he couldn't help but feel like he had just jumped into a huge mouth and didn't trust touching anything on the bottom so he paddled the distance to the dark ring he could see in the distance. Now he felt like he was heading directly down the throat of this lake monster he had constructed in his mind.*

[Arachnia of the Hour]

Descending Fire 19,

*The closer Gen got to the dark ring, the more he'd realize that it was a hole in the ground, slightly elevated, and surrounded by high strands of the thin fluid crystals that swayed with the water's movement. It looked easy enough to get into, a simple rock tunnel that led, well, somewhere...*

[Gen-Gora]

Descending Fire 19



*The irritable crab swam right up to the lip of the hole and slowly sank to the bottom trying to get a closer look. He looked at the strands warily, seeing some similarity to the trap of an ocean jellyfish. He scanned the bottom for anything that might be used as a probe. A stick, a loose rock, debris of any kind he could use as a stand in for his own claw.*