Winding tunnel after winding tunnel, she can get rid of enough earth to finally find what she was looking for: a door. It is twice as tall and six times as wide as she is, engraved with pretty symbols, made entirely of stone, apparently carved from the wall.

“Yeeeees! I TOLD them something was here, and here it is!”

A small space in front of the door is cleared out, and the girl climbs out of the tunnel to look. Past the floor-sweeping black hair, she has a faded-green-tunic and pants with the right-leg intact and the left torn-off. Toss in a bright-red-scarf, a shovel haphazardly hanging from her right leg, and the signet ring marking her as a member of the Explorer's Guild, and you have Cynthia. Touting Elementalist powers (for detecting metals in an area in front of her in the room, and to move the dirt) and the stubbornness to sit in her tunnels to look for ancient ruins...

“Okay, work worked, time think...” She swaps her active blessing off of earth-moving and into cognitive-power to deal with the excitement a bit better. “Okay, big door with symbols, time to work.” She takes a minute to center herself and mentally note a few things.

Click. Enhanced-memory-blessing. I haven't seen these symbols before.
Click. A shorter-range use of the detect-metal-blessing. Cohesive, no way around...
Click. Telekinesis blessing. Grab some paper in her pocket, sketch the door. Easier to draw in magic than with my hands... Focus! Done.
Click. Enhanced-reflexes-blessing. Cynthia grabs her shovel and walks up to the door, and uses the tool to push the door open. If that fails, hit the door with it!

Both things fail. The door is sturdy.

"Door is not able to electrocute me on touch, good to know!" Cynthia giggles to herself, this is all enjoyable.

Click, cognitive-boost. Symbols on the door... Patterns? Colors? Are they some sort of hieroglyphic-wording? What is this door about? Don't forget to check for a door handle or keyhole! She tries to figure out what might open this door...

There is no handle or keyhole, just the carved symbols. They don't seem to really... mean anything.

Cynthia scratches her head, and shrugs. She puts down the lantern, holds the shovel at the ready, switches back to reflexes, and pushes the door to open it with her hand. Maybe it's just that simple.

Nope, it's not. Doesn't budge.

Cynthia expresses her frustration in the most elegant way possible. "Damnit you goddamn PIECE OF ROCK!" She kicks the door. Ow.

"Fiiine... I guess I have to go research again or something. At least I get to tell people I found the thing! Oh, what possibilities await, here and there..." Grab the lantern, out of the doorway-room, put a pathetically-thin-cap on the tunnel, then it's back to the room of marks. She grabs her backpack, and it's up and out of her tunnel system. Feel free to insert a credits montage here.

Outside, a wild grassy plain, not much of note except for her tunnel-entrance. She squints at the sun, and dusts herself off. She smiles, and then it's the flight-blessing off into the sky! When she gets high enough, part of her backpack expands into a hang-glider and she soars off into the camera. Insert big-letter-thread-title. Either way, it's off to the nearest town to contact the guild.

The nearest town is a couple of hours that-a-way.

Wheee, flying.

Between [her] hang-glider, wind-blessing to help fuel it, and flight-blessing to supplement... There's no need to bother with the silly 'ground' thing. Fly fly fly.

Eventually she reaches the town, where there are people. She should not to magic around people like that, it is rude.

Flying the whole way here, only to stop at the edge of town? What kind of travel is that.

Cynthia pushes [her] hang-glider back into the backpack, and uses the flight-blessing to avoid having to walk through the city. She just flies over and plops down in front of the explorer's guild and would walk in. She doesn't really 'get' social stuff, but definitely gets 'convenient to fly'.

Yeah people will look kinda offended by that. This is just Not Done in public. The clerk behind the counter at the local Guild's chapter just sighs.

The walking pile of hair does not know enough to care, and might not care even if.

Cynthia walks up and waves her hand, showing off the ring in a very blatant and silly way. "Hi. I found the ruins I was looking for, and now there's some door with symbols in the way... Any Enchanters around that I can bother enough to drag over? Or can I just steal the next metamancer you'll behead for a day-trip or something and skip several trips?" Business as usual for Cynthia.

The clerk's eyes widen when she says the 'm' weir word and he looks around, as if trying to make sure no one heard that. "What are you talking about," he hisses.

Pretty sure I said that all correctly...

"I found some ruins. It is blocked with a strange door. I don't know how to open it. Is there anyone with a different magic that I can take over there to help try to open it?"

"Maybe, just, don't say things like that," he says, frowning nervously. "Here, you can post the details of your finding on the board upstairs."

"Sure then." Am I not allowed to talk about what I found right away?

She starts going upstairs, then remembers the whole cleanliness thing. Standing next to the doorway, click, dirt moved-off, click, get rid of the smell with some water-moving... Click, earth-move the bit of mud outside. Upstairs time.

The clerk grimaces at that and looks like he's questioning his decision to invite her upstairs but she's gone before he's made up his mind to say anything.

The floor consists of a sort of lounge and a couple of bathrooms. There are some more stairs leading up, but a shimmering blue field bars access. It's solid and smooth to the touch, like infinitely thin glass that's always the same temperature as your hand. Presumably there are living quarters upstairs accessible via tokens one rents downstairs.

The lounge contains a handful of floating sofas, chairs, and tables, some of which support board games, as well as bookshelves and scattered pieces of decoration. The board mentioned by the clerk downstairs is probably the flat rectangle made of stone attached to a wall, displaying images and text notes that shift in a continuous slideshow.

There are a few people present: two old women in camping gear frowning at each other and a game, an old man napping on a sofa, a teenager reading a book, a girl who looks far too young to be in the Guild but who nonetheless sports an unmistakable signet on a ring and is watching the game between the ladies, and a man in the process of leaving one of the bathrooms. The girl, the teenager, and the man all look at Cynthia when she walks in, but then return to whatever it is they're doing—the man has apparently been talking idly to the teenager before his bio break, for they resume a conversation as soon as he takes a seat.

To the board, and to write things on it.

The various posted images and texts float transparently over the board, but they react to her approach—and, more specifically, to her ring's approach. Her identification appears, and something of a "menu" does as well, allowing her to browse current news, ads, look for specific people, or post her own ad.

She just repeats what she explained to the clerk onto an ad.

I found some ruins. It is blocked with a strange door. I don't know how to open it. Is there anyone with a different magic that I can take over there to help try to open it? - Cynthia, Elementalist

Yawning and mumbling, "Would be easiest just to get a meta to haul over..."

The message is saved, with her identification so people can respond to the ad.

When she says the 'm' word, everyone else looks at her, and the young girl says, "Language!"

She turns around, looking confused. "What did I say? Did 'haul' suddenly turn into a curse word while I was away?"

Wait, asking usually doesn't help in these situations...

"Uhm, sorry. Move?"

"Not that! The 'm' word!" the young girl insists. "You shouldn't say it!"

"Hey, look, we ain't lookin' for any trouble here," the man talking to the teenager pipes up. "So don' bring it, aye?"

The gears work completely incorrectly in Cynthia's head.

"Oh jeez, swear words got 'move' too? Oh, fuck, sorry!... I mean, uhm... Cabbages?"

"No not that word, the one you said before! You said you wanted to haul a—"

"Psss!" says one of the old women, and the young girl shuts up.

"Lady, this 's a free Guild, ya shouldn' be upsettin' people like that," the man drawls.

Okay, 'haul' is now a swear word. Got it.

"Ummm... I've been at the bottom of a tunnel for like, a month at least? I'm sorry." She does a comically overdone bowing motion towards the room. "Literally just got back."

"Yeh weell that was a bad word even before that," the man shakes his head. "Whatcha posted there, anywhoo?"

SERIOUSLY?! I swear 'haul' wasn't a bad word...

"Uh, found a ruin with a door-thing. Needs opening. Yeah."

"Door thing? Artefact kinna thing?"

"It's a door. It's in the way of a ruin. I dunno if it's an artifact, I can't use that kind of magic. So, posting!" Weak smile. Hopefully people are less staring at her now.

Now only the man is looking at her, and the teenager sometimes glancing up from their book.

"Weell, Namia here might help ya," he says, inclining his head in the direction of the gaming women.

"Sure, sure. Thanks."

And with no wait for proper social etiquette, she walks away from this conversation and over to the gaming table and peers over the game.

The women completely ignore her. The young girl frowns something fierce at her.

Cynthia pouts at the young girl for a moment, then puts her face back to normal before speaking. "One of you is Namia?"

Both women raise a hand towards her, as if to say 'wait, we're busy,' and resume their game.

"Right..."

Cynthia decides to just flop on a nearby couch. She props her bag at one end, retrieves some food (having realized she hasn't eaten today), and then lies out and munches on some trail-rations of sorts. She'll waste some time doing nothing.

Eventually the man and the teenager will resume their conversation.

The game goes on.

Time passes...

Enough time to relax, enough time for Cynthia to realize she can just go out to some sort of restaurant then come back after dinner, of which they would have to stop for food and be unoccupied!

Cynthia gets up, packs her things, and leaves the Guild. Off to roaming the town looking around!

The people at the Guild look if anything relieved to see the back of her.

The town isn't very large, only barely enough to have its own Guild chapter (as well as a few of the other larger Guilds, too—the Historians and the Merchants are present, for instance). It has regular town things: bakeries, a few places that serve food, a smithy, etc. The people who recognise her from the stunt with the magic when she arrived—not very many of them, admittedly—still wrinkle their noses when they see her.

And as usual, Cynthia has no idea why they're staring at her. She just goes about her business.

Hopefully walking nearby a bakery, she thinks, will have something smell good waft out at her. An additional hope is the smell isn't that expensive. If nothing, walk inside a bakery. Something warm and fresh is the goal!

And lo, a bakery, smelling warm and fresh!

Hopefully this bakery has good customer service, for they are getting a visit from Cynthia.

As long as she's not rude or anything.

Alas, there is a difference between 'rude' and 'taboo'.

Cynthia walks in, and smiles as the smell of hot and fresh bakery food hits her nostrils. She walks up to the counter and to the person who will sell these delectables to her. "Smells greeaaaaat... Can I get one of those?" and she points to a little meat-pastry on the shelf, making a small dirt-finger to extend her point towards it via magic.

The person wrinkles their nose. "Please don't do that in my establishment. We're not that kind of place."

"Riiiight." She drops her hand and gets rid of the dirt-finger, frowning. Ohyeahohyeah. People are weird. Forgot. Try not to magic THAT much.

"Can I still get one?"

"Yes." They name a price. It is reasonably expensive for that sort of thing.

The increase in price is noted. Too bad the last time I tried to haggle I got shot out of a ballista.

She pays it anyways. It smells too good and though she might not have much money, her findings could make her much better off. Take it and head outside, it'd best be delicious!

It is pretty delicious, yeah.

Great. This is perfect.

Theeeeeeeen it's going to the guild again. Time has gone on, so perhaps the group has finished... Or at least she thinks she could just put up her notice with her standing next to it in edit mode so people would have to read it. (The irony of this is lost on her.)

When she gets there, a couple of gentlemen in city guard uniforms are waiting for her. "Yeah, that's her," says the clerk, pointing at her.

They turn to her and one of them says, "Ma'am, can you come with us?"

She stops in the doorway.

Tosses the last part of the food in her mouth. Swallows. Then sighs.

"Fiiiine." Haul is bad, haul is bad, haul is bad...

They don't handle her, merely lead her to one of the oldest buildings in town.

This is the time for staying quiet, hang your head, and follow along. Make sure to walk, don't make eye-contact... And try to learn what you did wrong. Not likely to learn anything, but try.

Inside the building, they bid her to wait in a waiting room, there.

Flump. A pair of chairs become a makeshift couch to curl on, with a third now containing her backpack. Time can wait...

...Even if she is bothered with not knowing what is behind the door. Feels like a waste of time to lie here.

Eventually a woman in city guard uniform arrives. "Hello," she says, taking a seat.

Her head turns up to look at the new woman. "HI there... Have we met before? Phil? Wait, no, not Phil... Uhm, sorry."

"No. I'm this city's guard's captain. I heard something about you causing trouble."

"Right." She sits up, still using both seats. "What did I do this time?"

She files away the "this time" part of the comment. "There have been sightings of you using magic in public, as well as using blasphemous vocabulary. These are not legal offences, but you do see how they can disturb the peace."

"Uhm, sorry, I didn't know that the word became a curse word while I was in a tunnel." She does mean 'haul'.

"And uhm, I like flying over walking? It's convenient?" No, wait, be sorry... "I'm sorry that I like to fly? Well, I'm not really sorry about that. I'm sorry you can't fly? Okay, that's a bit mean. I'm not sure I'm sorry about doing that part." She blurts out most of this fairly quickly.

The woman blinks slowly.

"Magic," she says, "is a sacred gift from the gods bestowed upon us to be used to better our lives. It is not to be treated so lightly, and it is upsetting to townsfolk that you do."

"Better our lives, yeah, so what's not better about flying instead of walking? I could like, hang glide into town but probably hit a bunch of people..."

"That betters your life," she snaps. "But the blasphemy is still the worse problem."

"So not hitting people with a hang glider is selfish?"

She stares. "You could walk."

"Yes, but that isn't better. Why is it so wrong to just not bother anyone and fly overhead?"

She gets up, an picks up up her backpack, holding it over her head. "Honestly, I can hit you with the glider if you think it's polite." She hits a button on one of the straps, pushing out the wings, and is now very awkwardly holding it up."It's pretty big! Like, it's a bit heavy too!"

"Are you threatening an officer of the law?" the woman gasps, jumping up from her chair.

Stupid look. "No? Probably not? I really don't want to hit you? I just have no idea what you're talking about anymore."

"Withdraw that at once."

"Okayokayokay!" She puts it on the chair then pushes the wings in, then flops onto the other chair. Cynthia stares at the woman, having really no clue what to say.

"I will issue you an official warning, and if I hear you're disturbing the peace again..."

Blink blink. "Okay."

She writes an official-looking document and hands it to Cynthia. "Don't let me see you here again."

No comments about blessings of hiding... Be polite... Try to be polite...

"Sure. Bye?"

"Goodbye."

Overly cheery switch in tone. "Bye-bye!"

Then out of the station, with hopes to get back to the guild without something else going horribly wrong... Walkwalkwalkwalk...

Nothing else goes horribly wrong on the way to the guild.

The clerk is dismayed to see her again.

Well Cynthia walks straight up to him. "Hi, is there only the common terminal? Like, no private ones?"

"...what? What would a private terminal even do...?"

Frown. "Like, having another terminal somewhere so that if someone was like, using the one just upstairs, you can still do things? Or spend time looking at things without hogging it."

"Er, no, we don't."

"Ooookay then!" Blank stare. "Have a nice day?" Smile, then she walks upstairs.

How goes the old ladies' game, and then to check the board afterward.

The old ladies are gone, as are most people. There is only an old man sleeping.

The board has two answers: one asking for more details, saying her description is too vague, and one having only a time and a place.

Her message: I found some ruins. It is blocked with a strange door. I don't know how to open it. Is there anyone with a different magic that I can take over there to help try to open it? - Cynthia, Elementalist

Well, it's pretty accurate to what the details are. Scratch that... She looks at the time and place message, and thinks that is the better idea to go with first. (Let's not try to explain things, Cynthia.)

It's today, half an hour after sunset, at this specific plaza.

Sure, why not.

Return message: "Sure I'll be there when then is."

This moment of literary elegance aside, she'll just pass time on a couch until sunset, then carefully walk over and silently lament the fact she can't just fly over the buildings.

There are people there!

Pick a wall not in the walking path, put backpack down and lean against wall. Fold arms, having the Guild Ring very visible. Smile. Don't stare at people. Don't look at people. Just stare at the ground, sure. Just keep the ring in sight. Probably they'll find her, since it's not like she knows who this person is.

A person approaches her.

"Hello!" she says brightly.

Cynthia looks up, "Hello there!" then waves with her left ring-wearing hand.

"Cynthia, are you?"

"Uhm, good?" Disregarding the whole afternoon and accentuating this morning.

"—I'll take that as a yes," she says. "Walk with me?"

Oh, uhm, what? Sure. Listen to people, Cynthia!

She puts her backpack back on and nods vigorously.

So they walk! "Explain what exactly you found?"

Walk walk walk. "Big door in some ruins. I dunno how to open it, bunch of weird symbols. Wanted help. Thought I could grab some sort of other-magic-type to try to look at it separately." Basically a recite of her message.

"Would be excellent to just take the next death's row meta--" Cynthia sticks out her tongue and quite visibly bites it. "Uhm. Nevermind that part."

"Ah."

Cynthia goes bright red. "Ah haul I mean damn I mean uhm... I can't speak, I am HORRIBLE at it. I already got picked up for saying that earlier and I've been here half a day."

A shy smile and a small stop on the walk. "Pleeeease don't tell."

"—haul?"

"I only recently found out that's profane, soooorry." She puts her hands in prayer and begs with them, reiterating her request not to tell anyone.

"It's. Not profane? 'Metamancer' is profane. Did you not know...?"

Picture a set of gears, none of them connected, with but one spinning wildly. The spinner manages to fly off it's axis and hit another gear, making it begin to turn slowly. That is Cynthia's brain right now.

Back in realspace, a short pause followed by a "Oooooh. Okay. That's why today happened... Why is it profane? It's a term. Should I just start calling them like, magical tri-sexuals?"

It takes her a second to clue into her stupid rambling. "Right. Thanks."

"It's... profane because metamancers are evil and influenced by the evil god and might corrupt you. You don't really talk about them, because it's taboo. Whhhhere did you live all your life that you never picked up on that...?"

"Nonononono. If I can't use the word 'm-e-t-a-m-...-ancer', what do people use? Vinkarites is kinda okay but non-mages could still worship him if they really didn't like puppies. I mean, magical trisexual works..." Cynthia facepalms. "But again, people can be trisexual without magic. Uhm..."

"They don't use anything, is what I'm saying. People don't talk about them. There's no reason to talk about them because you'll never meet one and they'll never use magic around you and if they do you should run away screaming. That's the idea, anyway."

In an entirely sarcastic over-the-top voice, "Oh, no, over there, it is a magical trisexual attacking me! Please, send help, and inform them as to the assailant's powers!"

"Well in that case you'd probably use the word, the situation would warrant it. But you don't usually—ask for a meta's help in whatever you're doing. Your case seems like it could use an enchanter, saying you need a meta is just asking for trouble."

"I didn't ask! I Just said it'd be convenient to have a person with magic-sight-- Wait, I didn't even get that far. I just said I'd happily take the next death's row meta-- uhm, trisexu-- PERSON there and save everyone the trouble!"

Sigh. "But I got to the word and then everybody got mad. Then they see me fly around and they get mad. I just can't get it."

Blink blink. "Sorry, door-thing? Walk? I don't know." Cynthia doesn't sound too happy.

"Using magic in public is also not seen as very nice," she explains. "You should only do it when there aren't other people around. And I mostly wanted to walk so we wouldn't be surrounded by other people while you explained whatever it was. It really is just a door?"

"Well, it's big, there's stuff behind it, and I can't open it." Cynthia sounds like she feels a bit better when the topic shifts. "I have no clue what the symbols mean, and uhm, did I mention that it's like a really far way underground? I made tunnels. Oh, and a sketch." She retrieves the sketch of the door from her backpack (taking it off for a moment in the process) and hands it over.

Probably could like, sell the tunnels for materials or storage or whatever so I can afford more stuff...

Kaede looks. "I'm Kaede, by the way," she introduces. "And no idea what these symbols are."

"Oh. Pretty name, Kaede. I'm Cynthia... But you already knew that, right... No idea on the symbols over here. Wait, I said that too."

"Yeah. So you can fly, then?"

Blank look. "I'm an Elementalist monosexual-- mage. Elementalist mage."

She shakes her head of the stupid speaking, then smiles as she continues. "Yup, I can fly. I prefer it to walking! Even kinda 'bought' this backpack from the Guild." She flops out a wing of the hang glider part, making sure not to hit anyone with it. "Kinda bothers me that people think it shouldn't be done in public, it makes finding shops sooo much easier."

"It does, but such are the ways of the people."

"I sit in tunnels and look for ruins... Have I said I'm not quite a good people person?" Laughter.

"I'm very much a people person. And people don't like it when you do magic in public, so I don't. And they don't like metamancers, so I don't talk about them."

"I try not to, but when you've been gone for a while and have been using it all the time... What kind of mage are you?"

"I can do enchanting," she says. It's technically true.

Well, Cynthia is none the wiser. "Ah, alright. Sounds good! I'm good to go back now, or whenever, or whatever."

"It's kinda late. How far is it?"

"Well, can you fly? I don't know how long it is to walk, and flying... Probably like half a day?"

"How would I fly?"

"Is that a question? Like, we do have floating couches, I just met you!"

"Yeah but I don't have a flying scooter or anything."

Frown. "And how would I know that until you say so? We JUST MET."

How high can a floating couch go if I push it?

"Most people don't have flying scooters, so it's a safe assumption to make a priori."

"Gee, most people aren't mages or Explorers." Her frowning continues.

"Yes but even conditional on that most people still don't have flying scooters so it remains a safe assumption," she says, a smile playing around her lips.

Frown frown frown. "So? I asked instead of assuming."

"That's fair," she concedes. "In any case, no flying scooters. We could rent one, but half a day high flying is, what, almost a whole day by scooter? Would need to pack."

Frownaround. "I'm fine to go whenever, as I'm sure I said."

"Tomorrow morning sound reasonable to you?"

"Five minutes, five hours, whatever. Meet where?"

She names the road that leads to the edge of town, at... the edge of town.

"Alright, I'll be at the Guild sleeping probably," and with her best guess, "so I'll see you then?"

"Sure! See you then."

A nod, a wave, and Cynthia walks away...

About a few seconds of facing away she stops and thinks to recharge her Guild Ring and probably refill some of the trail mix she has, but that doesn't really involve Kaede so she keeps walking.

The Guild building is just where she left it.

And likely Kaede did not yell back at/for her, so nothing's wrong!

Cynthia walks up to the [annoyed] deskworker. "Hi. So, been awhile, how do I recharge the ring again? Plus I want to buy a room for the night."

"Recharge? You got a new find? And, er, sure, new room—" He grabs a little stone sphere from below his counter. "Put your hand here please. The one with the ring."

Mental tongue-biting. Yes, my find is why I'm back here, it's details are on the board-thing...

Cynthia stays physically silent and puts her left ring-bearing hand over the sphere as requested.

The sphere glows faintly and feels warm, and then her ring feels warm. "You just go upstairs now and find a room."

Nod and smile. "Bye."

And upstairs she goes.

At the end of the stairs there are more stairs with the forcefield before them.

Cynthia walks up and touches the forcefield with her ringed-hand. Probably how it works.

Her hand goes through like there was nothing there.

And then presumably she can go through as well! Off to find a room and to sleep in it. Beware of 'occupied' signs.

There are a bunch of doors upstairs with square slabs of stone on the wall next to each. Some glow faintly red, some glow faintly blue.

Well, the barrier to get upstairs was blue, and that's meant to block out non-guild-members from entering... Blue must be a blocker, red must mean something is open. Flawless logic. Let's try to open a red door.

Nope.

Cynthia stares at the door for a moment, before deciding to just switch on her mental boosting blessing.

Click.

Well, likely the doors farthest away from the stairs are unoccupied and displaying the unoccupied color. Probably blue. It's also a better place to sleep inside to avoid bumping into people tomorrow morning. Let's go sleep there, a blue door near the end of the hallway.

The blue slab is warm and the door clicks open under her touch.

Success. Probably fairly useless to turn on the blessing because it was a 50-50 chance you already made so-

Click.

Enough of 'figuring shit out' bullcrap. Sleep. Inside she goes.

It is a small but cosy room with a bed and a bedside table and a table and a chair. No bathroom—that must be the one unmarked door outside, at the end of the hallway.

Backpack is thrown onto the table, blessing is swapped to inactive-Flight (the most important one to have recharging during the night for full power at wake up), and onto the bed she flumps. Covers are a luxury she doesn't care too much about and time consuming to deal with, so sleeping stomach down on top of them is just fine.

Dealing with people is exhausting. Walking is exhausting. Let's just sleep.

Nothing and no one bothers her during the night.

The lump of hair stirs in the morning. Cynthia just walks as a sleepy hair-person (wearing a backpack) out of the room and toward the meeting place. If she's early she can spend the time to look better, if she's late it's probably better to arrive and then deal with it while they walk.

She's early, yeah, Kaede's nowhere in sight.

There's a boy there, though, when she shows up.

Cynthia walks to a place to sit, and having not seen Kaede as Cynthia knows her, she sits down and starts meandering her hair out of being a spontaneous reenactment of The Grudge.

She's early as Kaede isn't there, but is also late, as Kaede is there. Too bad Cynthia can't enjoy this logical oddity.

"Ready to go, then?" the boy walks up to her to ask, smirking.

Cynthia pauses, then slowly looks upwards to him. "Hello?"

"Hello indeed."

She looks a once over of him, then stares back up. "I'm currently looking square into your bulge, and I don't see why?" Pause. "Like, my head is currently that high off the ground. If you feel like talking, sit? I'm waiting for someone but I don't really care to like, shoo you off, not to say it is an issue or whatever to talk."

...he cracks up.

"I'm Kaede, we met yesterday, when I was a girl."

Cynthia sits there utterly dumbfounded. "Aaaaand when did I get told you were going to have that switched yesterday? I mean, it is finished?"

Sigh. "I can barely social anyways, I don't know how to talk to you anymore!"

"Should it change because of my gender?"

"Okay then, sir-madam-person! Let's just ignore that the girl I met yesterday is STILL BULGE HEIGHT."

Cynthia gets up and faces away from Kaede. She definitely isn't with a small blush. "Sorry, I'm stupid, okay? Sorry. You can be whatever you are, just don't blame me if the whole he-she thing gets mixed up, that's all I want to say."

He laughs. "'They' is fine. Ready to go?"

Cynthia takes a moment for a breath, then turns back around. "Yeah, I'm ready."

"Lead the way, then."

She starts walking down the road. "Thataways. Start getting less roaded, and then my tunnel in the middle of nowhere... I mentioned that, right? I hope you aren't like, really bad at climbing or anything."

"No, I'm pretty good at climbing. I explore on my own most of the time, so."

Cynthia, she's also-- they's also in the Explorer's Guild...

"Right, but like, some people swim and stuff? Not always climbing. Asking!"

And this is where she just gets bad ideas. "So... I bet I could just give you my backpack hang glider, get you up in the air, and fly alongside you? Even if I suddenly kill myself, It'll keep you going. We can fly there!"

Blink. "That's not a bad idea. Is it a charged one, or does it just run on physics?"

"Physics? It's just like, cotton and stuff. I'd just push you up with some air in between falling spurts of flight?"

"Sure, that sounds fun."

"Beats walking, even if I have to do a bunch more work."

Cynthia takes off her backpack and holds it out. "Little button thing on the shoulders to flop them out. I'll push them back in when we get there."

"Okay. Should I just—open them here, on the ground?"

"Uhm, yes? I'd recommend putting it on first. Then I can like... Wind you into the air. Unless you have a building to jump off of."

"Alas, I lack buildings." He offers her his backpack and takes hers, then presses the button thing.

Cynthia takes Kaede's backpack, contemplates the contents, then puts it on.

Cynthia's Backpack looks like a camping backpack, but with two loops hanging down for fastening onto your thighs. When the button is pushed, the sides - just flaps - get pushed back and the wings flop out to form a hang-glider.

"So, yeah. Human kite! That's the word, kite. But I'm the wind and also then I'll fly up when you get up."

"Alright," he says, and wears the backpack. "Ready."

And Cynthia takes a step backward. Then it's into the air bending. Large dramatic hand motion, and a huge updraft appears beneath Kaede. The hang-glider catches it and tilts accordingly, with the thigh straps sweeping Kaede's feet off the ground, a method for not having to hold your own legs up while you're in the air. Then Cynthia directs the draft to push diagonally upward, to whoosh Kaede up into the sky.

Then the less sane part. After Kaede gets some height, Cynthia jumps upward and switches to her flight blessing. She zooms up to Kaede, then stops controlling her flight and switches back to the air blessing. Cynthia starts to fall, but she directs a big air current at Kaede again to push up even higher. Then it's back to the flight to stop plummeting toward the ground. Kaede would only feel the speed of the air and the speed of ascent slow and quicken, unless looking down is planned.

After two more cycles of plummeting towards the ground, Cynthia levels out the glider with the air blessing, then flies up alongside Kaede. She's smiling like a fool, quite pleased this actually worked and there's no need to walk. They're a decent ways up, but slightly lower than Cynthia would have it.

There is in fact looking downward! And looking amused.

"You're quite skilled."

"Yup! When it comes to flying, I have like, four ways to do it! I hate walking. So much better to fly!"

Her hair has blown all backward and it's easy to see it's long enough to nearly touch her shoes. She's smiling fully.

"And like, sure, I'm good with magic too. I use it more than them anyways."

"The taboo probably developed around the finiteness of mana at a time when magic was more vital."

"Sure, let's just have a standard set of Elementalist Blessings and then tell them to not use them. Once they all wrack their brains to find other things to use, then we tell them not to use those either!" She spins around in midair. "The taboos are stupid. I don't get people."

"Little hunter-gatherer group of people had the one elementalist," he suggests. "That elementalist was their protection against the wilderness and the elements. And then one day when they run out of mana for a critical blessing they fail to save someone's life. That seem like a plausible mechanism for the taboo to have evolved?"

"And when the local Elementalist gets a knife in the back on combat, everybody would die from over-reliance!"

She scrunches her face for a second, figures out the point of this theoretical, then back to a small smile. "Sorry. Now we have many more, less random bear attacks, and stuff like that. If I decide to stay four-hundred-ninety-nine of five-hundred on my fire blessing just to keep less cold, I don't think it's much of an issue. I'm not in charge of keeping people safe."

Beat. "Oh, yeah, there's little handholds on the wings here," points, "in case you want to just keep your arms somewhere..."

"I mean, the taboo makes no sense anymore but that's not an excuse for it to stop existing, is it?" he asks, doing as instructed.

"... It..." A moment to parse the question. "It should stop, because there isn't a point to it?" She shrugs. "Or you know, not being randomly mean to people, or wasting my day with law officers, or being screamed at..." She does a spin, to make herself feel better.

"Yes it should but just like it needed incentives to begin, it would need incentives to end. Have you those?"

"I just said some? Not being mean to people, not wasting time, saving air..."

And in an attempt to change the topic, "hopefully behind the door is a golem army or something."

"Wouldn't that be something," he laughs. "Somehow I doubt it."

Grumble. "Why not just get all the Metas to pick up the little rock pieces, throw them in a bin, and pick out the golems? Or something." She snaps her head towards Kaede. "Sorry, I talk. I'm a dumb. Usual. I'm in a good mood flying!"

"It is, again, a matter of incentives. Ideas like that don't just disappear, they need to have very good reasons to disappear, and merely practical ones aren't enough. Not when they've gotten so deeply rooted."

"And that's the stupid part. The incentive is the Golems that they make! The giant cool walking statues! The thing people like me spend our lives trying to find... Maybe you too, I don't know why you joined."

"That's part of the reason," he agrees. "But on the other hand there were the huge wars that devastated the continent and left all these giant cool walking statues around."

The correct answer is not 'so?'.

"I know. At what part did I say to do that all again? All I said was like, using metamancers. There's plenty of ways that don't let them have that kind of power."

"Right but the thing is, if even one gets that kind of power, then it's the wars again. And according to the doctrines, metamancers were corrupted by Vinkar and everything they touch is spoilt."

"If one gets it, we just-- SURE! We're all touched by the same set of magic, we all must obviously be spoiled! Time to just plummet down now!"

Cynthia doesn't give off the sense of sarcasm that well.

He recognises it anyway. "We just what, exactly?"

"I'm pretty sure like, several sane mages and some good test subjects could make some sort of way to kill a Metamancer. I mean, we did beat them before? And with all the neat stuff around, having a few good Metas could be a ton of more help then one bad one?"

"An army beat them before, and it was a near thing, and we had several times their numbers."

"And a better prepared army versus a starved Metamancer? Where---"

She rubs her eyes. "Sorry, I'm stupid. This is why people hate me if they know me. Say weird things then never shut up. Don't have to keep talking."

"I don't hate you. I... understand why other people would not like to talk about this. Taboo is strong. And you're not stupid. Also you'd have to first starve the metamancer, and that's not super easy to do."

She stares out towards somewhere and squeaks out "well I'm sure we could find an easier way to do that. This is probably the worst I've felt flying. Flying together is different."

"We can just talk about something else. I think you're correct, for the record, we could find a better way."

She looks back over. "Okay." A shrug. "I said I joined for finding Golems because I liked them, what did you join for?"

"Finding cool things, getting money, gaining a lot of social capital to start pushing for large-scale change in policy that does not require me to be royalty, directly."

"... Changes in policy? What?"

"You know, change laws, divert more taxes to large-scale public goods and services, that sort of thing."

"Oh, the stuff that makes people in Teinnab yell at each other. Sure, sure. Not my thing." Cynthia doesn't have anything else to add to the topic.

"Well, not just that. Taxation itself and tax reforms, investment in technology, getting someone to stop those petty Bezanab lords squabbling all the time and taking the townsfolk with them, better wealth redistribution, medicine... Maybe even trying to make metamancers more accepted, who knows."

She isn't into the conversation until the last sentence. "Well, the usual stuff until the end there. I stopped paying attention to all that bickering, but good luck I guess?"

"Well it's the usual stuff that's gonna save several lives, yes. End goal, utopia filled with immortals."

"Immortals? Aren't we like, too young to think about living forever? Feels like something a grandpa would want to implement."

"Most things I do, I do for altruistic reasons. I can care about people other than myself."

Did I insult- well, I guess I can ask.

"Did I insult you? I didn't mean to. I'm just saying like..." Puzzled look. "Okay, well I don't know how old you are or anything. Yeah, putting it together for others is alright? Like... Thanks for helping me too?"

"Oh, no, I'm terribly hard to insult. I'm also incredibly ambitious and literally all of my ambitious are prosocial in one way or another. I don't really have a whole lot of things I want for myself."

"... Somewhere with two wardrobes for clothes?" Giggles.

He grins. "Sure, why not."

"Hmm." She smiles. "I didn't really ask if this was a permanent thing of yours but I guess that answers it! I guess then attached bathrooms for switching genders in public and exiting properly?" A way of asking if it's a normal occurrence. "And then maybe some good tailors to make a male outfit for when you switch genders, it falls right off?"

"It usually only changes from one day to another, it's almost never fast enough to just happen in the middle of the day."

"Oh, it isn't something you want? Sorry, didn't think of that..."

"Well, 'want.' It's not voluntary, if that's what you're asking, it's just, say, a way I feel sometimes—or half the time."

Cynthia.exe has stopped working.
...
Rebooting...
...
...
Her dumbfounded look remains. "Uhm, I have no idea how to respond to that? We can... I'll... Let's just fly down. I'll do the main stuff, like before, just relax and don't worry when you're a little pointed down and left."

He blinks. "Okay? What's up?"

"Like, we can go down to the ground now?" She doesn't want to attempt to explain her non-understanding of feelings she doesn't have.

"Okay, I guess."

Down, then?

Down down down. Wind blessing to tilt Kaede downwards for a little, and then to spin in circles above a point instead of travelling further. Cynthia goes down to the ground sooner, and makes sure the fairly quick vertical descent is safe.

Shortly, then the wind pushes Kaede to stop a landable distance from the ground. Cynthia is a few steps away, taking off Kaede's backpack in front of a hole in the ground.

He looks at her quizzically.

She finishes taking off the other backpack, sets it down next to the hole, then walks over.

"Well that method worked twice, I guess we have a way back the same way!" Cynthia smiles, then walks behind Kaede to put the hang glider wings back in. They require pushing back in, but it isn't difficult, taking only a few seconds.

"—what are you doing? Why'd we land?"

She walks next to Kaede, then makes a little finger out of dirt and points. The little entrance to her tunnel is just a hole in the ground, a little hard to see if Kaede's backpack wasn't placed next to it. All around it is just a little grassy plain, nothing really of note.

"I said it was in the middle of nowhere..."

"Oh, we've arrived."

Dirt finger falls off into the ground, and then a little dirt-arrow pops up next to the hole itself. "Yep. Nowhere."

Cynthia pulls up her hand towards the hang glider backpack's strap, then stops, awkwardly holding her hand up as if to take it off Kaede herself.

Kaede shrugs it off and hands it to her.

"Nowhere is a very large place with several middles, I had no way of knowing this particular middle of nowhere was where you meant."

She takes it and puts it on. "Well then why are you surprised when we land in the middle of nowhere?"

"Because we were in the middle of a conversation which you stopped without giving any signals that you meant for it to stop, unilaterally, and then decided to descend to an otherwise nondescript area. There are a number of other hypotheses that could have explained your behaviour and I did not have enough evidence to promote the true one to significant consideration."

Cynthia throws her hands up in the air in exasperation and walks over to the hole, judging that a valid answer.

"That's not really an answer," he says, following.

"I suck at people, I suck at explaining, and I suck at answering questions?"

"Well then I can give you some pointers. Pointer one is don't make unilateral decisions that will affect other people without first consulting those people or at least informing them of it."

"... I said we were flying to the middle of nowhere that was agreed and then I said it was going down time...?"

"Yes but you did not really say why we were going down and you did it practically in response to something I was saying."

Cynthia sighs. "Yes. Yes. I know. You keep saying these things, I still have the same response."

She reaches behind her back into her backpack and pulls out a small lantern.

...well alright. Lantern.

She lights it in a very public-unfriendly way, her finger becoming a lighter.

Cynthia then looks over at Kaede. "You can keep going? I don't reaaaally mind being yelled at."

"I'm pretty sure I was keeping conversation to acceptable volume levels."

She tilts her head slowly to the side, then shrugs and turns to the hole. "Handholds here. So on. Just follow me." The lantern is attached to her belt, and then she's over the edge.

He follows! And if he's spending a tiny bit of mana for night vision here and there, who can blame him?

And if there's no comments for a little bit, they go down for a little while and then a sort of crawl through a tunnel horizontally. They would end up in the little antechamber with the wall scratches that Cynthia was using for a room.

The night vision is a good plan. When the crawling starts, Cynthia turns into a shuffling hair-pile that would cause nightmares to the unaware, among blocking a bunch of the light from her lantern.

Yep, no comments. When they reach the antechamber, though, he looks at her quizzically.

Cynthia puts her backpack down, takes out her shovel and attaches it to her belt, then leans back against part of the unmarked wall and looks towards Kaede. "My little house. Lunch or something?"

"—sure, why not."

Cynthia pulls out food from her backpack, then stares at Kaede. She realizes something is wrong, but fails to think of what. "... The door is like, a little bit past here? Not more than like... A small crawl's away."

Cynthia then looks at the food in her hand and then back to Kaede.

He blinks at her. "Something wrong?"

"I don't know, are you okay? I'm okay." Munch.

"Yeah, I think so," he shrugs, and finds some food in his backpack.

"Suuuure. We've kind of been in weird topics the whole flight." She lies back on the dirt floor and eats.

"Well, yeah," he says, smiling, and does the same.

Munch munch munch.

Then halfway through eating Cynthia, with her not-holding-food-hand, idly creates a copy of her ruin-outline from the scratches on the earth wall, then uses fire to cook the copy into a little faux-ceramic portable rectangle with the diagram on it. She then stares at it for a few seconds, then floats it over toward Kaede. It'll stay intact on its own, but it doesn't seem much more durable than a dinner plate.

Cynthia is almost done eating, not too adverse to just shoveling a little, but at least eats quietly and with her mouth closed. Her shirt has acquired some crumbs, though.

He inspects the little outline, and finishes eating.

Finishing of eating.

"Bad question, but... Are you like, carrying around two different outfits? Wouldn't that be kinda awkward if someone looks in and sees the wrong half of underwear?"

He sporfles. "One, I'm carrying a few sets of different outfits, yes, but it doesn't change a whole lot between genders. Two, it's all stored in my backpack anyway, someone would have to be rummaging through it to see anything. Three, 'awkward' is just not a state I can occupy. People can feel free to assume I wear girls' underwear to their hearts' content. Heck, it's kinda hot, even."

Good thing Cynthia is still lying on her back somewhat, to hide the sudden blushing from strange thoughts. I regret asking thaaaaaaaat.

"Okay? Okay. Okaaaay." She sits up and pushes her hair around quickly. "To the door then?"

"Indeed."

"Excellent!" Backpack back on, down the other tunnel. This once splits and branches, but Cynthia knows the way of course.

"Even if I feel like, you're making fun of me half the time, it's nice to have someone to talk to! And hey, doooor time!"

"I don't think I've made fun of you once."

She shrugs, then realizes that Kaede would have a hard time seeing that, then speaks. "I dunno. Might be wrong. Don't worry about it."

Crawling over, Cynthia isn't waiting around past the junction-heavy area (towards false leads) and just speeds down to the door when there are no more turns.

And Kaede follows, follows, and blinks when they arrive. "Wow. This... sure is something."

Cynthia takes off then sets down the lantern. "Probably should have let you see it before eating, but, hey, yeah! It's awesome!"

"Well. I suppose I should try to infuse it with mana, huh?"

Shrug. "Well, do your enchanting thing. I don't really know what you do with that. I'll be ready to keep the dust off when it opens, hehe."

He touches the door and closes his eyes, and—

—the door starts glowing. All the symbols start emitting a faint green light that grows brighter and brighter—

Cynthia smiles wide enough for it to be creepy. She is prepared for blowing dust out of the way though.

—and then it stops. Or rather, it doesn't stop glowing, it merely stops getting brighter. Kaede opens his eyes and takes a step back, looking. "Hmm."

"Progress!" Cynthia walks a bit close, still behind Kaede. "Green is a color, yep."

Click. After a quick step on enhanced hearing to see if it started something, Cynthia will try to look for parts that lit up but didn't have symbols, try to see if only parts of the symbols lit up, various looking past just 'it glows now'.

Nope, it seems to be just 'it glows now' with the specification that 'only the symbols glow.'

"Okay so I'm pretty sure it can be opened, now. I am just unsure of how."

Common sense: just open it as a door. Maybe we already unlocked it.

Less common sense for backup: Tap the symbols with some elements. See if anything happens.

Neither of those seem to help.

For the benefit of Kaede, "Okay, nothing on those attempts."

Now, looking in the little cleared out space Cynthia made... Anything that might be more than dirt along the floor or wall? Or perhaps along the wall slightly buried she can stick her head in to check. Hopefully this isn't a password.

He shrugs, and stares at the door.

And nope, nothing like that.

Cynthia pops her head back out of the floor next to Kaede. "Ancient ruins, I command thee, open sesame!"

Nope.

(Kaede giggles.)

Cynthia pops out of the ground entirely. "Well, is that how you want it?"

She flips into a handstand. "Ruins of the ancient age, I beseech thee, OPEEEN!" Cynthia breaks out giggling, before falling over.

Well now he's giggling too hard to stare at the door.

"Ah, sorry!" She gets up from the ground. "Nothing I can see near it... Well, new that is. Nothing changed."

Headscratch. "Any ideas, or do you just need to stare some more?"

"Well I'm just an enchanter, staring will certainly not do anything, will it?"

"I don't know, I asked. I wasn't insulting you."

"I know you weren't."

"Oookay."

Cynthia walks up to the door, and covers one of the symbols (top-left) with her hand. "Dooo something. You are not just a door, you are a lovely entrance."

He giggles again, but continues staring. The door does not do anything.

...or does it? That one symbol over there might've dimmed a bit...

...? Cynthia moves her other hand over top of the now dimmed symbol.

Nada.

Another symbol dims, though...

... Fine then! Cynthia just splays herself out to cover them all, logic be damned!

He continues giggling, and the symbols continue dimming and lighting up at random.

...
...
...
"Oh come on, I'm trying things! I'm telling you what I've done that fails to work!" Cynthia steps back and looks towards Kaede. She's still smiling.

So is he. But also staring at the door.

Or maybe it wasn't him... But hey. Sure.

Cynthia stares at the door, perhaps some sort of pattern is working... Or at least she can try to follow what Kaede is doing.

Kaede seems to be doing some staring. Which, of course, would give literally zero information to an enchanter.

"... Is it like, four pieces? Or like, two pieces of door? Or one big door with the frame involved?"

"Seems to be something more complicated than that," he says, still staring.

"Well... It's the only not-wall-thing. It would have to... Go in or out. At least a bit backward to slide open in another way."

Can the door be pulled outward with a bit of stuck earth to yank with? Or more forcibly pushed, likely the same chunk of earth will do more force than Cynthia pushing.

Nope. It seems to actually be carved out of bedrock directly.

Cynthia steps back and scratches her head. Click. Cognitive blessing.

Okay, let's try to work this out while Kaede is still staring--

Wait a minute, why is Kaede staring at the door? If it's charged, there isn't any reason to look at it so intensely. Also... If it's 'complicated', how would that even show up to an Enchanter? Let alone, how would an Enchanter change the glow of the symbols after it's charged? It could be a thinking process, but...

Flashback to when they met, spoken by Kaede: "I can do enchanting."

Cynthia's smile goes away, her eyes widen, her hand grasps at her shovel. Oh, haul. Specific wording. Kaede isn't doing the logical thing by being in Teannab to get capital for use in politics, of course a Metamancer who changes their appearance daily would start by going into secret caches of old things... We were talking about Metamancers, and Kaede kept talking about incentives to convince people!

She swallows hard. Okay. Let Kaede open the door, then... Then we talk. I don't really care about Metamancy enough to do anything, but I found this place. If we start fighting, I'm at a huge disadvantage. Let's just relax, try to stay dumb, keep on this blessing, and wait...

"Interesting blessing, that one."

Haulhaulhaulhaulhaul.

"Uh, okay? Sure?"

He smirks, and keeps watching the door. "What did you conclude?"

If Kaede is actually in my head here, you heard of all that. If Kaede is not...

"No more ideas on how to open the thing."

"Uh huh."

Cynthia's eyes go back to normal and her hand stops gripping the shovel (though she keeps her arm alongside her leg). "Can I just say that I really don't want to break the door down? It's rather meaningless to this whole thing, but it's still interesting, and if we learn how to open it, it'd be really cool."

"Break it down? I'm figuring out how it works."

"Yeah, I'm just saying... Looks like you're just staring at it though..."

"And you just used a boosted cognition blessing while I was doing that."

"And? I'm trying things, I'm switching between a bunch of blessings."

"Mmhm."

"Aaaaand you're sitting there staring. No input."

Why am I suddenly being slightly hostile this is notagoodplan.

"Mmhm."

Staring at Kaede progresses. "Any thoughts?"

"A few, but I'm going to wait until you're either too freaked out or no longer freaked out to discuss them."

Cynthia frowns. "I'm fine? Like, seriously, I want the door open."

"I know."

Staring, then Cynthia rolls her head backward, then sighs. "I'm not freaked out at all, I have no idea what you want me to do, just keep working or whatever and tell me if you need me I guess. I'll say if I think of anything or see something or or or or so on."

"I don't think you can help me at the moment, actually. This door requires a key, I'm pretty sure, and I'm trying to figure out whether it'll be easiest to make a key or just make the door think I did."

"Alright, already found the keyhole and now are deciding how to lock pick it... Lemme know if you need me! I'll be... Doing nothing. Sounds good."

Cynthia leans against the wall near the tunnel entrance. She turns on her fire blessing to make and maintain a little faux-campfire to make the room more pleasant a temperature.

"Sorry," he sighs. "Metamancy tends to take a while."

Cynthia walks over and punches Kaede in the shoulder. "Stop being an asshole just because I'm a bit stupid."

He grins. "You're not stupid! And I wasn't a butthole."

"I'm perfectly okay with calling myself stupid with interacting with people."

"Hmm, perhaps. But it does tend to take a while." He looks up at her from the corner of his eye. "Not about to go run screaming to the mountains?"

"And what, go back to the stuck-up traditionalists? I thiiiink I'm fine with this, as long as you don't just steal it all for yourself. Or, you know, bury me here."

"But I'm all corrupted by Vinkar and stuff."

"Not" punch "appreciating" punch "the" punch "jokes!" punch. She isn't hitting that hard, but still.

He laughs nonetheless. "They're not jokes! Or well they kinda are but. Why are you not worried about being corrupted? Are you an," he gasps dramatically, "atheist?"

"Nobody would sit down and explain it to me, so I learned it all from the book. Have to say, really dull book and I don't like the fan club."

...he cracks up.

She shrugs, and moves back to sit on the edge of the tunnel. "I already said I'm fine with Metamancers, why not just let me use them to open doors and stuff officer, why am I back in jail for a simple question officer... I mean, you're good and all."

"Yes. I am. And I am an atheist, so I'm pretty sure I'd be decapitated even if I did not also happen to be the king's disappeared child."

"Oh, are we sharing all our deepest secrets? This one time, when I was six, I stole a candy bar." Smiles.

He continues grinning and watching the door.

"Oh, yeah, when I was nine, I think, I flipped out and threw a chair at someone. I don't even remember why, I just did." She shrugs, deciding that's enough poor attempts at making fun of Kaede. She's prepared to wait a bit.

"I wasn't actually joking at all, at that last part."

"Oh. You're a disappeared king? Well, I don't think I can even begin to think of how people would normally treat you, so I'm not going to try anything different, yay."

"Disappeared prince," he corrects.

"Oh, sure. Neat. Teinnab, Laokab or Bezana-nanananana-ab?"

"Laokab, were you living under a rock for the past twenty years?"

"Well, gee, I'm only around that old, but hey, hmmm." Cynthia stands up and looks around. "I thiiiink I may be under a few rocks. Maybe. Would have to check, yep." She jumps into the ceiling, then sticks her head out of it, hanging her hair nearly to the floor. "I found a rock, so, yeah, I guess so!" She drops the tiny rock into the room, giggling.

He starts laughing, too. "I mean, yes, I'm about that old, too, that's sorta the point I'm making."

"Okay, so which body of yours is royalty that I have to remember disappearing from my childhood of someone who is probably uncommunicated religion-thing-wise," (excommunicated, but she means unpersoned) "in the brain of the not-social person?"

She remains hanging from the ceiling, her legs phased into the dirt.

"Both."

"... Okay." She pulls herself back into the ceiling, becoming but random hair for a moment, before falling back to the ground. She goes to sit back on the tunnel. "Yeah, no clue, rocks it is."

"Yes it pretty much is rocks."

"As we stare at one."

"Yup."

...
...
...

... indeed. Lots of staring.

A little bar graph is in Cynthia's head. On the left graph, her desire to ask some questions. On the right, her desire to stay quiet and have the door opened faster. And then a hand swoops over and crayons over it in a third color. And then a cat rolls onto it, batting everything apart for attention. Crayons are ruined, it's a tragedy. Will need more crayons. Alas, the crayons are not fit for cat-sumption and yet they are being eaten. It is as adorable as it is frightening... What are they crayons made of, anyways? There's a bunch of like, not-dirt around.

... Probably could tell Kaede about that part. Though all that manages to come out from her mouth is a quiet "Meow" out of nowhere.

Kaede blinks and looks at her. "Did you just 'meow'?"

"...Uh..." Her brain takes a second to detangle. "...No?"

"So what did you say?"

"Uhm... Something... Just don't worry about it. I just meant to say that, like, those other tunnels go off to like, some random ore deposits and stuff... So if you need anything made, I probably have some relevant books in my head about metallurgy and forging and stuff."

"Okay, sure."

Cynthia sits and waits, as she was, since this door is taking such a long time to open.

Feels like it's been months. Almost as if an entire holiday season has gone by, and the presents are still BEHIND THE DOOR. But the presents are still there.

Thumb twiddling occurs.

The door rattles a bit.

Twiddling twiddling twiddling.

Hopefully Kaede isn't like, delaying, but, it's probably hard?

Twiddling twiddling. Excessive use of the tunnel's entrance to spin self around the sides of the tunnel, making her hair tangle everywhere turning the tunnel exit into a spiderweb of black hair and nightmare fuel...

It's pretty quiet besides the quiet noises of thumb twiddling down in this pseudo-room. Being distracting would slow down the presents!

It would.

Eventually the door glows brightly and finally starts to open. They can smell the staleness of a room that hasn't been opened in several hundred years, of dust that has long since settled. As light invades it, they can see humanoid shapes, several of them, and what look like tables and bookshelves extending as far as the eye can see. Which is not much but still.

"EeeeeeeeeEEEEEE!"

The circular hair pile that is Cynthia elementalist-leaps past Kaede (the hair momentum's past, no clotheslining) and plops in front of the door. The resultant gust stirs up the dust in the room, but Cynthia switches blessings and blows it all carefully back into a little pile.

The pile spins in place as she untangles herself and gets her head to pop out forwards. "Fi-nal-ly! What prizes await!" She's even more energetic and happy then one can think possible. Open faster. Opeeeeen.

It finishes opening. The chamber beyond is extremely spacious and filled almost completely with several identical featureless statues. What little area there is free of statues is almost entirely occupied by a table with several old tomes and bookshelves with more old tomes.

"Go-leeeeems. Yes!"

Click. Her personal blessing, hair control, kicks into actions and untangles the mess into very good looking extremely long hair, puts it all flowing behind her, then Cynthia stands up. She doesn't look too bad like this.

She angles herself to let Kaede look in, as she turns to talk. "So, am I supposed to pay you something? Do we split this stuff technically? I have no idea."

"You get dibs but if I'm dissatisfied with however much you decide to give me I post about it on the Guild's forums and people don't help you anymore, is more-or-less how this works—is this your first finding?"

Cynthia would be annoyed if she wasn't so happy. "Not my first finding, just my first big working-with-someone. I'm not really called for unless they specifically need me, and well, because. I wouldn't be deciding what goes where or talking about it."

She turns back toward the treasures. "So, should I just stroll in or do you want me to be patient?"

"Go ahead and stroll in."

She takes a step forward, still not in the room yet, and then turns back to him. "And what's that look for? I can check for stuff from here. Traps... Other things."

"I don't expect there to be any traps, and there was no reason for that face."

"Okay." Shrug.

Click. Back to the wind blessing. Cynthia walks in, making gentle gusts near her feet to dust everything into a little pile near the door. She'll be working her way into the back.

Lots of statues between her and the back.

If there's some way to avoid touching them and crawl/contort/shuffle into the back, working slowly will work.

If not... Well, flying two-feet overhead of them is an option.

There's enough space for that, uncomfortably.

Uncomfortably is fine.

Then she will find many statues and a wall!

"It goes to back here, jeez, there's a LOT of them! Nothing hiding I think."

Uncomfortable manoeuvring again. All the little dust piles get swept back out with her, and get deposited at the entrance pile. Most of the room is dusted and less musty. Now over to the tomes, which need more than a passing work...

Well they're incredibly fragile...