Private Ilmea's Lament Waterscape

[Lily]

With words that could easily be praise and an exclamation of amazement at Lily's actions, the little water gremlin narrowed her back and placed her hands at her hips with a grin stretching across her face. Although she then quickly jolted as her indulgence in self-satisfaction made the ball of water collapse, quickly scrambling to form a new one that was almost as impressive! If a bit lighter on the fish that were caught inside of it.

Letting out an awkward cough to distract from that situation, she grabbed a small wooden stick that washed up close to them and started writing with it in the sand. "Lily of the Lake" She liked to introduce herself as such. She rarely gave her game characters a surname, but not that she was in the shoes of one, it felt a bit awkward to have such a short name. And a fancy title made her seem more important than she actually was.

Hanno had already introduced himself before along with ghast, so that officially made the three of them acquainted. But the question remained, how exactly were they gonna get all the fish out of that giant ball of water? Dropping them on the sand seemed a bit crude, not to mention how many of them would take that chance to escape again.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

A small smirk crossed Hanno's lips as he saw @Lily looking all confident and puffy, and as she started to introduce herself, his eyes trailed to follow the stick that soon wrote the name on the sand. 'Lily of the Lake'. His eyes went up to focus on hers again.

"Oh, Lily like a flower? Of the lake. That's very cute." Hanno nodded, pondering for a moment. "I think I remember a poem about it... Hmmm..." He frowned, trying to remember the poem, but before he could completely give a thought about it, a fish suddenly fell from the sky, landing face first into the sand and getting stuck in there.

Hanno only had the time to blink at the sight, a second before Ghast greedily wrapped her tentacle around it and shoved into her wide mouth, chomping it in one bite, giving no care about the sand that was covering it.

He winced, only now noticing the issue they had at hand. "Hmm... Hey Lily, how long can you hold that sphere? If we can make a hole big enough, we can keep all of them stuck in a single spot, like a puddle."

 

[Lily]

The girl nodded along with Hanno's observations. The name was cute, she thought so too - that was why she ended up choosing it. Well, much better than going with the usual gamer tag one would have when joining an MMO. Actually being in the role of the character, it sure would be awkward if she met sir XxXbuttchuggerXxX here. She should log back into that game and check how the lad was doing...

But that was getting beside the point. Hanno clearly had some manner of an idea as to how they could catch all of the fish that were trapped inside of the water sphere, but it would not be instant. A few droplets of sweat already appeared on Lily's forehead, so as she continued concentrating on maintaining her magic, she showed three fingers on one of her hands to the fae.

Well, he seemed capable enough, and he had a magical shield that just gulped down one of the fishes, so she had no doubts that he would be able to do something about their predicament.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Hanno's forehead shared the same amount of droplets of sweat when Lily showed the 'three' on her fingers— Which he didn't know if it meant three minutes, three seconds, or three whatever, he only knew that three wasn't a big number, so he would need to make it do!

"Alright, here goes nothing!" He said as he was already moving, holding his Shield out and sinking the her bottom edge into the sand, forcing it deeper into the sand and gritting his teeth while yanking out of the ground a huge pile of sand before tossing it aside, making a small mountain of it next to the hole he had just made. The hole was far from being enough to hold all the water from the sphere, but Hanno quickly went for another Shield-Shovel approach, tossing sand aside while Ghast spat sand and slapped his face with a tentacle, grumbling something.

"Ack! It isn't time to complain, Ghast—! Lily! Get ready to throw the fishes and the water in—" He rushed, not knowing how much longer she could take it, but he would try to open the hole as much as he could.

 

[Lily]

Luckily for Hanno, the three fingers did mean three minutes, rather than three seconds. So that gave him a decent amount of time to use poor little Ghast to shove away the sand and make place for what would soon become a new tiny pond full of fish. And he would know exactly when to leap out of the hole himself, because after roughly the three minutes given, the sphere started slowly descending toward the designated space.

< exasperated breath >

Finally, things would give in and the giant orb would fall in with a giant splash. It was a little unfortunate, but not all of the water fit in, allowing a number of fish to flop onto the sand, and then further make their way back into the larger body of water to escape. Still, most had now been trapped in the newly made pond.

Slumping forward, Lily rested her hands on her knees before looking at their handiwork. Yup, who needed a fishing rod when you could just do something like that! It would have surely taken them the whole day, if not longer, to get as many catches as what she just did in the span of a few minutes... at the price of exhausting herself.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Thankfully the time Hanno had was much longer than he anticipated. The rapid digging turned out to be fruitful... For most of part, at least. If anything, the fact they had a puddle of fishes all ready for them to keep was amazing. When the water splashed, and fishes were scattered everywhere, Hanno made sure to pick up the smaller and younger fishes and return them to the water, while tossing the bigger ones back to the puddle they had created.

Slapping the sand out of his hands, and out of his shield, Hanno glanced over @Lily —

"Hey Lily, are you good?" He asked, grabbing his waterskin and offering it to her.

"Good job at keeping them up there for so long. I guess all these fishes are going to be enough for a lot of cooking." Hanno cracked his knuckles while looking at the whole school that was on their hands.

 

[Lily]

Lily wobbled about for a bit before she was handed the waterskin, prompting her to take a few sips and exhale rather loudly. Her eyes were quick to rest at her handywork after, darting from one swimming fish to another. Suddenly, she felt almost guilty, walking over and squatting by the pond's edge.

It was the same as seeing a chicken before it got defeathered and beheaded. Sure, once a person was eating the meal, they usually didn't think much about it. Delicious and necessary for survival, but when confronted by the reality that the meat came from a living and potentially quite a cute animal, it just hit different.

She shook her head and slapped her cheeks a few times before standing up and stretching, almost falling over in the process as the wooziness from overexerting herself quickly returned. It seemed that she had much practice ahead of her in the future. That said, she turned towards Hanno, forming a 'cup' with one hand and then mimicking the motion of a ladle swirling inside of it with the index finger of her other hand.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Hanno watched @Lily just in case her recovery wasn't successful, but as soon as she was good enough to stand and even clasp her own cheeks, Hanno smirked knowing she was already feeling much better.

"What, buddy? Do you to be the one that will cook?" Hanno asked, raising an eyebrow.

He honestly preferred to cook everything himself, but he wasn't going to say no to Lily if that was what she wanted. Besides, if each of them got to cook a little bit, it would give more variety to the flavor of the ir food, so it wasn't a bad thing.

"If that's the case, you can grab my cooking wares by my backpack" Hanno pointed at the backpack that was near his Shield, that was resting. "It should have plenty of stuff to start some cooking, and has some flint and steel too. I just don't have any firewood with me, so we may need to fetch some, or at least some dry branches and leaves." He explained.

 

[Lily]

It wasn't exactly difficult to recover enough strength to at least be able to stand straight, but it seemed that Hanno was a bit fast for Lily in general. Before the girl could even properly shake her head to signify that she wasn't really good at cooking raw fish in the wilderness that was nothing like the comfort of her home and well-known kitchen with all the equipment she could ever need and she was familiar with... he was already pointing at the backpack.

< glances to the side >

Now it was too embarrassing to just back out, so she trudged along the sandy surface, steps low enough that her bare legs were making lines instead of individual footprints, and started dragging out the various equipment, including the aforementioned flint and steel. But he was correct, they had to make a campfire first before they could make any fires. Her eyes suddenly fell on Ghast before her finger would start drawing on the sand again.

And image of a shield with small dangly limbs, seemingly running along with a bunch of logs on top of it.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Hanno started to prepare the place where they would make the food, making a small circe on the sand where they were going to eventually make the campfire, and glancing at the fishes that were on the pond for a moment. Now it was the slightly uncomfortable time— Approaching the fishes, he grabbed one, and as he neared a nearby rock... He started to give an end to them.

But it was better than cooking them alive.

Meanwhile, Ghast opened her singular central eye, following @Lily's approach and glancing down at the sand, watching the drawing and taking a few seconds to process it. Ghast rumbled, bouncing a couple times, before sounds of ripping flesh and snapping and cracking bones echoed from it—

The flesh surface of the shield deformed, with the actual shield becoming just a mundane wood shield, while a Faerin Girl showed up, with a tail that resembled a tentacle.

"Sounds fun! Let's ̴̡̏̕d̷̝̔o̵͕͔̊͐ ̷̡̘̈́͗i̷̩̜͆t̴̩͛!̴̝̇͒"

The voice distorted by the end of the sentence, but the excited grin on her face remained.

 

[Lily]

It was probably for the best that Lily didn't really catch a glimpse of what Hanno was doing. Sure, she did help fish up all of these... fish... and with the explicit idea of having them for food as well. But she didn't really think ahead far enough to realize that they would have to be - as kids say these days - unalived.

Instead, she entirely focused on the very interesting transformation of a shield into that of a little girl. It was weird... but then again, she has seen weirder in different games, so she just showed Ghast a thumbs up and got up to her feet again. Granted, they were in the middle of a coastal lagoon that was, for the most part, surrounded by the sea on one side and rocky hills on the other. Trees were rather sparse, mostly decorating the sides of the steep slopes, enjoying their lives in extreme environments.

Scratching the back of her head, she looked back at Ghast, and shrugged. Maybe the sentient shield girl had nature magic or something?

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Swaying back and forth, the tentacle of the Faerin girl showed her excitement, gluing its suckers onto the wood shield to drag it along with her, while she followed @Lily to the selection of trees they could choose from.

"Point at the trees and I will bite 'em up!"

The girl bared the barrage of fangs she had in her mouth, showing off the tools she was ready to use for the job, just waiting for the girl's instructions.

Meanwhile, Hanno continued his job at getting the fishes ready, and whatever the two girls had managed to do in the time he had worked on it, he would eventually finish the preparation for the fishes, getting onto his feet before turning around to try to look for the two of them, but not before covering the fishes and keeping them in a safe spot.

Caution was everything, what if another giant crab decided to show up and feast on their fishes? Thankfully, some living ones remained in the pond.

 

[Lily]

Bite 'em up? Lily couldn't help but imagine the little strange faerin girl- or more specifically- her head on top of a beaver body, running around a tree and nibbling away the bark, then gnawing on the exposed tree flesh before the whole thing would fall down. Somewhat amused by the idea and eager to figure out whether it would look anything like it, she pointed at the nearest tree, its roots firmly embedded into the steep rock that it protruded from.

Naturally, she herself had remained on the ground, legs firmly planted in the sand. She was no good at climbing and definitely would be of little help with cutting the actual tree down. But... she did prepare herself and her water magic. Regardless of whether the sentient shield would shout 'Timber!' or not, she kept an eye on the tree she had pointed out and once it started falling, she planned to shoot a few beams of water from the ever-present bits of sea all around them to hopefully cut the thing into several smaller pieces before it would hit the ground.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

"All right, ma'am! Lil tree h̵e̸r̸e̵ I̵͈͙͌̒̎͝ ̵̛̮̭̻̩̙̒̀͌̇c̶̛̖̙͇̺̈́̍͌͂õ̵͉͎̮m̸̧͇̥̪̝̔̏̀̈́e̸̟̍̇͋͠!!"

The little girl skipped steps, hopping and cherfully nearing the tree that was pointed to, and like a tasmanian devil, she surrounded the base of the tree in a rapid spin, biting and gnawing it with ferocious chomping sounds, that made splinters fly back and forth, while large chunks of the bark were violently ripped away from the tree.

As the base was smaller, the tree began losing its balance, and as it fell— the beams of water sharply pierced and slashed the tree, bringing it into small pieces of wood as it fell, demolishing the tree completely.

"Ooooh! Nice trick!"

The little girl skipped and hopped once again, leaping on @Lily and wrapping her in a (incredibly) tight hug that almost felt like a coil, before letting her go and pointing.

"Big bro will LOVE it!"

Hanno looked from afar, with all fishes ready to get roasted. "... You guys really destroyed that tree, didn't you..?" He said, letting out a nervous laugh.

 

[Lily]

Watching the little fae(?) girl start working at the base of the tree, one would think that she was more of a beaver beastfolk than anything else. Well, given her general appearance and how she was apparently also a shield for the boy, it was clear that she was anything but normal, and possibly even a little dangerous, given the way she was acting at times, and her personality…

< . . . . . . >

But there was not that much time to think about it all, the tree was soon coming down and Lily’s little jets of water collided hard against the weakened bark. As the large object fell with the full force of gravity and its weight behind it, it really did get more smashed than cut, resulting in countless small pieces raining down all over the sandy surface below their feet. That… would make it a bit hard to gather, wouldn’t it?

< . . . . . . ! ! !>

The hug, on the other hand, was a bit unexpected and the sheer force behind it was enough to nearly topple the petite girl. If the gremlin creature hugging her was any bigger, they would have probably both ended up on the ground by now. It made sense that she was able to just… nibble away at a whole tree to make it fall down.

Once free, Lily’s gaze could only fall down onto the countless pieces of what was once a living tree, now practically pulverized. She honestly didn’t realize that her hyper-focus on one single mastery would power it up that much, but here she was. Or perhaps it was all the time she was spending here? She couldn’t help it, enchanted as she was by this new super-realistic world. That said, she spread her arms as if to gesture it at all, then lowering them in a somewhat defeated manner.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

"It is looking great, isn't it?!"

The weird faerin showed off proudly, but Hanno couldn't help but feel concerned that she was probably being a handful to Lily. Though Lily was being quite of an unique character herself, especially after pulverizing a tree as if her water beams were anti matter missiles.

"... I mean. This isn't bad. It isn't like we are making furniture." He chuckled, approaching as he saw the results, nodding. "That should be good for a lot of campfires. I don't usually like to use the inventory feature, but it would be a waste to the nature if we didn't bring all of this leftover with us." Hanno rubbed his chin.

The little girl watched intently when Hanno mentioned the 'inventory feature', but she remained eerily quiet while doing so, almost way too well behaved for how she was acting just a few seconds ago.

Taking a glance at @Lily, he grinned. "So, let's get it ready for the fishes?" He asked, reaching for the bigger chunks of wood.