Zagaroth

  It was going to take a long time for the three teens to put together a crude boat for making their way down the river, though it would be shorter than it could have been, given the avaible learning materials and their own special skills.

  Derek was the oo learn how to tightly weave reeds to be effectively roof. This was because his ability to tuo the wood element allowed him to trol the reeds better than weaving by hand alohough it was still a lot of work. This skill was learned in trade for the bor of making baskets to be sold by the bunkin who taught him.

  Shizoku's alchemical talents were perfect for learning how to make roof coatings to reinforce the tight weave, there was no reason to rely on the weave alone when they could make somethier. While the little alchemist was w off the debt of learning these formus, she also was able to find the time to tweak one of them and created a variant that could harden the reeds o soaked in. Of course, she was going to o make a lot of it in order to soak the entire boat.

  Fuyuko's keen senses were perfect for hunting out the various ingredients that Shizoku needed, as they were not able to simply purchase this sort of supply. The first several days were limited to hunting the shoreline; reag the isnd in the ter required that Fuyuko learn how to swim first. Derek and Shizoku were both able to help with that in the evenings, and Fuyuko proved to be reasonably adept if ly agile raceful. They also sacrificed her older, med clothes to alter into appropriate swim gear as, in her opinion, even her unusual leather armor wasn't ideal for swimming in.

  Not that she was entirely happy with the results of their tail job either. But at least the knee-length shorts and the shirt weren't as form-fitting as the armor, despite having been made more snug than she'd prefer. Derek had shorts that he was satisfied with, and Shizoku didn't seem bothered by wearing clothing that g tightly when she swam, though it was edged with frills to break up the outline.

  Several sets of her old street clothes were sacrificed to get exactly the bits Shizoku wao use. Fuyuko used to wear three or four yers of those, sometimes more when it got really cold, and some of her old 'shirts' used to be dresses. All of it was torn and patched with several stains, she had kept them more out of a habit of always keeping any clothes you had rather than intending to wear them again.

  There was also a lot of leftover material, which could be turned into strips and ropes and twine for various parts of the boat and oars, as well as a small sail. There was no wind down here, but Derek could attuo air and water to help direct the boat.

  Once Fuyuko had gathered enough raw materials for Shizoku to make a suffit amount of the coating, she turo her stru task. While getting the alchemical ingredients, she'd also cut some long bamboo shoots and brought them back to their stru area, and had also mao find a few shiny rocks that she hoped would prove valuable when they had a ce to get them checked out.

  Now she o sort and double-check the bamboo shoots to make sure they weren't splitting, and then she o trim them into equal lengths and create twe buhat were tied together tightly. She wasn't sure how these 'pontoons' were supposed to work, but they were one of the things that had been in their instrus.

  Of course, the instrus had also been a list of options. These pontoons were probably not needed, but this was their very first boat and they all felt more fortable making the boat as stable as they could. This was why Shizoku was treating the presumably water-tight weave that Derek was making, and they were using a total of five poles crossiween the pontoons and the boat when only two or three should be needed.

  It was during this stru work that Fuyuko started to uand how strong she really was. Sure, she was nky, but she was also very tall pared to most people. That retive skinniness hid a lot of muscle, arength was further fueled by her heritage, her body ily eling potential and will intth beyond the simply physical. It helped solidify some of the training and teags she'd gotten from Mordecai.

  During all of this, they had a room, food, and security in the knowledge that no one was going to mess with their work in progress. If it was a rger group of seasoned explorers, Kazue wouldn't have made that promise, and in fact, would have enced mischief against the careless and the zy. But there were enough stresses ohree as things stood, and ing back to find some of your work had been undone just wasn't the sort of experience she could bring herself to infli them right now.

  On the day they fihe vessel, they stepped bad let it sit, at Shizoku's insistehat all three of them take a long break a. It was te the day that they came bad begaesting. They were careful to not go far from shore at first, and most of their gear was either onshore or ba their room.

  Ohey were satisfied with their testing, they pulled back up on shore aed that whole evening and well into the m. Kazue was amused at how well-reguted Shizoku had the team. She was bossy, yes, but she was also often correct about how to pace their work. Kazue wondered which lessons were from being on the receiving end of overwork, and whies had been drilled into her head by her grandma.

  They took their time triple-cheg their gear and their setup before they finally took off for real. It was about noon, but the river itself otentially traversable in a siernoon, and at worst they should get through that evening. They had slept te, running a little into the night would be doable.

  Navigating the sandbars and shallows proved easy enough; Derek sat at the bow and leaned forward to keep his hand ier, tuning to water ah to help sehings that would not be quite visible. He couldn't help with the wind while doing this as two elements at a time seemed to be his limit, but navigation was more han steering from him, and he could use water to help push their boat.

  Shizoku sat close behind him, to help bance against Fuyuko. Fuyuko's job was to trol the boat with a long guide pole. They also had oars, but given their ck of experience, using poles to push and guide seemed more intuitive and they kept the oars as backup.

  They passed the shallows and got to enjoy a short se of peaceful travel down smooth river before the cavern widened out and the river thioo much to keep boating. Instead, they had to slog through wet, sug mud while dragging the boat behind them. When they came to this realization, Shizoku made a sound of annoyance. "Derek, keep your eyes forward. Fuyuko, help me out." She normally preferred traditional robes, but the little kitsune did have some other clothing in her pack. Once she had on trousers and a shirt instead of robes, she was ready to help. Robes would not only have gotten dirty, but the weight of the mud on the hem as they dragged would have made them more awkward to move in. Normally such garments wouldn't touch the ground, but given how much their feet sunk into the soft ground, she'd been right to ge befetting out of the boat.

  By the time they had gotten across the mud fts, all three of them were thhly covered in muck, with Shizoku grumbling the entire way. Just because she knew how to cope with stuff like this did not mean she was used to it, her forest was generally drier and 'er', with a lot less mud even during rain.

  Ohey reached water again and could reunch the boat, they did their best to themselves up, but between their clothes and the boat, it retty clear that they were going to be stuck with things being muddy for a while.

  Wet and dirty, the irely happy trio tinued on their way down the river until they reached the small ke with a barrier that had been hung low across the water to prevent passage. The bunkin 'gang' manning the barrier challehe teens to athletipetitions. The trio could try as many times as they liked, but they wouldn't be allowed to pass until they won three of the petitions.

  After some iation, Derek took the first challenge, which was swimming. Fuyuko wahat to be first so that she could warm up with her archery; she hadn't had a ce to practice during this delve and it could be a finicky skill to maintain. She did have to use a provided bow however as magic items were forbidden.

  However, innate abilities were not banned, and with his ability to manipute water, Derek proved to be a match for any of the nd-based bunkin. He might not have won against a bunyip, but that would have been unwinnable for most adult groups as well, so they were not part of this challenge.

  The archery challenge didn't go as well as she'd hoped as their champion proved to be quite the marksman, but she was able to make up for it by winning at both arm wrestling and a race. She didn't o pull any tricks to win at arm wrestlie the surprising strength of the much smaller bunkin, but for the race Fuyuko pushed herself, drawing upora power and speed from a partial use of her shifter powers. Rabbits were known for their speed after all, and she wasn't taking any ces.

  Shizoku did not try any of the petitions. She did offer to py hide and seek in a very sweet tone, so long as she was allowed to be 'it', but the annoyed fox girl was showing sharper teeth than usual when she made that offer and the bunkin has been hasty to dee that offer. Instead, she used the time to set about ing herself and the boat with magic. The sort of spells that could be repeatedly cast this way generally didn't much per casting, so it was only truly viable when they weren't traveling.

  After they had wohree challehere was only one more hurdle to overe: whitewater rapids. While not quite as dangerous as true rapids, it was still a rough ride with a lot of bumps and swirls that could overturn a boat. The pontoons proved a mixed blessing here; they provided more stability but even with Derek guiding them and using his water attu in jun with Fuyuko's poling, it roving impossible to avoid smming one or the other pontoon into a rock occasionally.

  When they hit the short waterfall at the end, Derek called upon all of his elemental power to make their drop smoother, and they nded in the final ke with their boat still mostly intact. There were, however, plenty of cracks in the bamboo of both the pontoons and their eg rods.

  Derek colpsed with exhaustion, and Shizoku had Fuyuko grab an oar ahem to the shore while Shizoku teo Derek and made sure that he hadn't done more than tire himself out. Once she was satisfied that her boy would be okay, the kitsuook the time to get a better look at this side of the endi was simple and peaceful, with no clear challeher than making it across to finish the zone.

  It made her suspicious.

  "Fuyuko, do you still have that air bubble chew I made earlier? Good, here's another one. I want you to explore this area as best you while I look after Derek. But start on the shore before you use these to dive." Wheall girl had left to begin her scouting, Shizoku settled Derek in to rest his head on her p until he woke up.

  Fuyuko's expedition proved to be quite fruitful. She found the cave behind the waterfall easily enough and was quite happy with the shiny crystals she found there that looked much more valuable than the rocks she'd found at the beginning of the zone.

  There were also a few herbs that she reized the st of from the training Shizoku had given her, and Fuyuko was careful to tuck those away into her pack as well. Only when she was satisfied did she prepare to go diving. Without a lot of other eyes about, she was more willing to just put away her outer clothing and go swimming in her armor. It didn't actually hinder her, she just felt like she stood out way too much when it was wet like that.

  Fuyuko wasirely certain what she was looking for uer, but there were some particurly metallic-looking fish she mao snatch by growing cws and using her hand like a spear. She dropped those off at the boat and noted with amusement that the now awaken Derek looked rather embarrassed, though Shizoku insisted that he tio y there using her p as a pillow while he rested. After that, she dived back down to explore the bottom of the ke, where she found a rge k of clear crystal. It ain to haul the ten-pound crystal to shore, but she was quite pleased with her find, even if it felt weird every time she squeezed it.

  O was out of the water and had a ce to dry, Shizoku was able to identify it as quartz. It was mostly gss-like in its crity with very few inclusions, and the kitsune practically drooled over the idea of getting to make ented items with a k this rge and clear.

  In her excitement, she finally let Derek sit up again so that she could examihe quartz and start w on pns for all the things she wao make out of it. And she was going to have Derek help her when he had better trol of his elemental powers.

  There was enough room in the expanded space of Fuyuko's pack to store the rge crystal until they had time to deal with it and decide on more details of its fate.

  Now that she , Shizoku also took the time to test the scales of the fish Fuyuko mao grab and identified them as having scales of silver-ieel, the same as the silvered steel that could be fed into ons and armor, though the quality was was not the best. Still, it was enough to get the trio to spend a couple of hours fishing and pulling up what they could, with Derek taking the lead and showing the others how to craft a makeshift fishing rod. They even mao get a couple of gold-scaled fish, and one covered in ruby scales.

  When they were dohe trio gutted and ed all their fish before they set out on the ke again, crossing to the far end where several campsites were clearly marked. The exhausted teens made camp there ahe fish preserved in one of Shizoku's ste pouches while eating simpler fair. The fire was easily lit at least, with Derek's elemental powers ing to the fain.

  Zagaroth