Oh, fuck.

That’s so hot.

Lucia shatters the frozen grogler, scowling at it to hide the flush in her cheeks. “—Thanks. I’m bad at ice.”

"Well then perhaps that is something you should work on in your copious spare time, you nutter, as it is entirely tractable unless you're planning to tell me you've some kind of anti-affinity."

“Nnnno, it’s just not usually necessary and I can’t get mana from frozen mals. Sooo I slacked off after the one—I’ll ask the void for better ice spells tonight sorry.”

"Miraculously, we seem to have survived! Next time you could do us the courtesy of explaining what has you taking off running when there have not been any audible shrieks of terror so as to spare me the trouble of guessing and checking."

“—I didn’t want to alert the seniors who were there to bid on the spell abut the weak walls.”

"Then say 'nobody follow me' or 'I need so and so for backup' or some such thing! You don't have to say 'attention all and sundry I am concerned about a hull breach'."

"--Yeah, I'll do that next time. I'm not used to being on a team, I don't have the right habits built, but I need to learn fast."

"Shall we go reassure the masses that you have not gotten yourself killed?"

"Let's slap a quick patch on the wall, first." 

"Ah yes, I'll just reach into my pocket for the sheet metal I carry on my person. We're going to need to go to the shop to get anything to use as a patch, Walsh."

"I was--yeah, okay."

Down into the shop again.

Lucia assures Aadhya and the bemused seniors that everything is fine, and then goes through the cupboards for as eclectic a selection of items as she can manage. One of them is a sheet of metal with which to patch the wall; the rest are there to make it look like the sheet of metal isn't her main objective. She stacks them on it like a tray and carries them out into the hall. 

Aadhya grabs a few things as long as Lucia's cleared the cupboards, transfers them into her shop locker, and follows along.

"Movements knocked loose a weak spot in the wall, we need to fix it," Lucia says in a low tone. "Everything but the sheet metal is camouflage."

"Damn, I haven't scored the assignment yet. Alas."

"This is just a patch job. We're going to need something much better before the problem can be considered solved."

"Well, let's hope the next thing to squish up is smaller."

"Yeah. What are we going to need for the version where we use the phase-change spell for the fix--"

"We can get some carbon, burn some scraps or something, and then I have a spell for infusing that into iron to make steel, and we can do that a little bit at a time, progressively like El was doing with the silver. That ought to cover for the weaknesses the make-and-mend will have left behind."

"Phase control is cheap for what it does but that's really going to add up over a weak spot this size," El says to Lucia, assessing the hole in the wall the grogler left behind. "So you'll need to be full up, you and a few crystals on top of that."

"Yeah. Maybe I should stick my head in and check for anything convenient and immediate before we patch the wall."

"Not your head, genius."

"But that's what I do my seeing with!"

"It's dark in there and it won't get less dark if you stick your face in it. Plus even if all the mals avoid you if any have already been through they may've coated the whole thing in flesh-eating acid. Get a mirror and a light."