[Hider=Previous Posts]Raising an arched brow, Jötz regarded her with a look that hinted on incredulous while being filled with amusement. While he knew he had been delving pretty deeply into the back-beyond, he hadn't realized that not only had he arrived at the most isolated place that ever would or could be but had somehow metaphysically proceeded beyond it. Which wasn’t as impossible as it might sound. The devastation caused by warring Sparks and their armies had done some rather strange things to the whole concept of space and time in the Wastes. He finished tending to her other foot and wrapped it tight in bandages. “Odder towns? Ders zome odders in da Vastes. Dey kinda come und go. Der vast dis one place, Coggshead, it chust up und poophed one day. Ten years later it chust come back. It vast like no time had passed fur da townsfolk.” He paused to try and remember the rest of the story. Shrugging as there recollection came back, he continued. “Dat may have been becaust dey vast all turned into leetle inch high statues, maybe. But, ja. Ders odder towns.” He stood up then, his rangy length towering over her as he pulled forth a rag and started to wipe his hands. The rag began to very lightly smoke. “Vhat chou vant isn’t zome town or village, dough. Vhat chou vant is one oft da cities! Dey don’t burn Sparks der. Dey tend to teach dem how not to burn tings down. Spoilsports. Maybe get picked up by da Baron. He treat Sparks dat behave demselves pretty goot, I hear. Chou be nize und safe der in his castle.” Jötz took on a sly look. “Oooor… chou could find zome abandoned castle und claim it. Built chouself a secret 'la-bor-a-tory’, a few monsters, a few minions, couple oft peasants to terrorize… Hmmm, dat’s da life. Chou build zome place where chou ist safe! Ist not like chou can go home again.” Tossing the rag aside as it continued to smolder with reddish smoke, he turned to examine the swamp better. “Best ve get moving, I am tinking. Vhen da moon comes out, zo does a lot oft odder tings. Ve should find a good camp site und get zome rest.” He grinned back down at her. “Don’t vorry, schveetheart. I stick mit chou til chou settled. Not as dough I gots anyting better to be doing." -- "Um...uh-huh," Ivy replied, clearly not paying attention. Again. Though this time, she had a pretty good reason, as far as she was concerned. Reason being that despite all the Jäger's efficient kindness and rather disarming, if unusual charm...whatever he'd just smeared all over her feet (which were, for the record, still very, very blue) had left the rag lying six inches to her right smoking. And okay, so it was a little interesting. A lot interesting. Anything that smoked could have a lot of good news and/or uses going for it. But still. Smoke. Ivy wasn't stupid; where there was smoke, there was fire, or in most cases, anyway, and fire had nearly just claimed her life because she'd gotten a little too trigger-happy. So. That could definitely be bad. Or really, really great. She was half listening, half inching closer to the rag, eyes wide and cautious, sorting through whatever Jötz was going on about for useful information. Disappearing villages? Nah, she knew where she was headed. The most exciting the Motorhum had done in the last fifty years was erect a second wall around the first wall when the Wastes had started getting a little less inviting. Floating manses? Meh. Maybe. Only if she could figure out what made them float, and she wasn't sure she even needed a castle for that. Abandoned castles? Nope. Where was the fun in abandonment? Nowhere. It was gone. Left. Abandoned...or doing the abandoning. Whichever. The point was it wasn't Motorhum, so why get worked up? Never going back home? Eh. That would only happen if -- "Sorry, what?" said Ivy, and the careless, dreamlike quality was gone from her voice. She sat up abruptly, oil-stained fingertips just centimeters short of uncovering the myriad mysteries of the SmolderCloth. "Did...what do you mean I can't go home? That's my home. I mean, I know they were...put out by the Spark thing, but they'll...My family'll...They'll come around eventually. They have to, I'm...I'm the oldest..." She trailed off as the reality of her poor argument -- and her rather unfortunate situation -- began to sink in. "But I don't...even..." Even what? Believe she was a Spark? What else could it be? She'd only ever known one other Spark from Motorhum, a boy named Johann Townsend. She'd been four years old when he'd built a ray gun out of a coffee maker and three straws. That was the story, anyway. She'd never gotten to ask him. Johann's own family had put him out on the street. The villagers had taken care of the rest not long after that. Objectively, then, she supposed she'd gotten lucky. Very lucky. The ÜberOven had distracted long enough for her to run. Her family...or maybe just dumb luck had distracted long enough for her to find Jötz. And Jötz had pulled her from the fire, right back into the frying pan, though a frying pan of a very different variety. So, the villagers wouldn't kill her, and her family wouldn't disown her. But they wouldn't take her back, either. And just like that, the only home she'd ever known was gone. She was homeless. And a Spark. And her only friend had tried to set her feet on fire. Or something. Quiet, still caught between stunned surprise and wary silence, Ivy got to her feet, idly dusting dirt and mud from her apron. Mama Petra's apron. At least she wouldn't ever know about the ruined stockings. Ivy balanced on one foot at a time and pulled the on, more out of sentiment than necessity. "Alright," she said finally, when she couldn't think of any more reasons why Jötz ought to just take her back to Motorhum. "I'm ready. Let's...let's go." -- It tugged on his heart strings, watching Ivy come to the realization that her old life was gone to her now. He hadn’t been much older than her when he’d taken the Draught. But he at least had done so willingly, thankfully even, out of love and service to the Heterodyne family. Jötz’s old life was long gone to him as well, but he had embraced it. His interest in the girl went from curiosity to pity. Showing that pity was a bad idea, feeding her a poison that would weaken her while she strove to survive in a world she really didn’t know. Instead, the Jäger opted for solemnity instead. “Goot,” he said. Without another word, he lifted her off of her feet, which by now had cooled to a soothing sensation that should have felt as though her feet were still being lightly massaged. The rag he stomped out easily. The salve did have that property when in contact with some fabrics, he recalled, but the torn and muddy stockings seemed fine protected as they were by the linen and gauze. Cradling her in his overly long arms, he made a jerking motion with his neck. “Chou throw youse arms around my neck, hokay? I run at a slower pace. Chou rest you feet.” And before she could protest or say another word of any sort, they were off. It wasn’t as fast a pace as before, more of a leisurely jog that did not tire him in the least. Jötz held her close in his arms, safer than a babe with its mother. He wasn’t quite sure how long he ran for, concentrating instead on splitting his attention between seeking out a decent shelter and watching for possible threats. There were far too many things that could go wrong. While he would normally enjoy such sport, taking care of this girl seemed a higher priority than going a few rounds with some abandoned construct or forgotten clank. The moon was starting to sink by the time he slowed, his eyes spying the remains of stone walls about a large weeping willow. “Der ve go,” he murmured. The branches should shelter them from any rain while the scent of the moss and heather about the ground might help hide them from anything that could sniff them out. The walls themselves were ancient. Lichen covered the blocks, all scored with ancient signs of fire. It hadn’t been a large building, but two of the walls were still strong and stout and could protect them from behind while the great girth of the tree’s trunk would keep them from sight. Protected from the elements as best as they could be, he set her down tenderly against the interior corner. -- "Oh, no, you don't have to -- " was as far as she got before realizing her new friend/mode of transportation either couldn't hear her or didn't hear what she had to say. Her feet didn't hurt anymore, but she supposed it was best to avoiding looking her various gift horses in the mouth just yet. Seeing as how she didn't have a place to live anymore. Or a willing family. "Uh. Well, thanks, then," she said quietly as she shifted into a position she hoped was more comfortable for both of them, hooking first one arm, and then the other around a fuzzy neck before craning her own to catch the last traces of Motorhum on the horizon. There wasn't much to see. A lot of smoke. A faint smudge of orange that might have been light from the village, or remnant of wildfire. Motorhum had never been very big. It's silhouette traced a lumpy pattern against the last light of day. It looked smaller than it ever had from way out here. Ivy realized abruptly she'd never been so far from home. People didn't leave Motorhum. She wrenched herself around roughly to look forward instead of behind, ballooning her cheeks to exhale slowly. It was easy, too easy, to feel sorry for herself. And kind of unfair, if she really got down to it. She certainly hadn't felt sorry for the Townsend boy. If she was very honest with herself, she could almost remember laughing with delight as she'd toddled after her parents and the rest of the village, a dinner fork clutched in her chubby fist in place of a pitchfork. And Johann hadn't had the benefit of being picked up by a Wasteland-savvy Jäger on his way out, either. Really, Ivy had gotten pretty lucky. She'd be eighteen in a few short hours, and practically an adult, anyway. Time to find something to do on her own. To that end, Motorhum hadn't been very kind. Aspen was only sixteen and already being courted by half the town. No one was all that interested in a girl who spent half her life in the clouds, and the rest covered in grease. Truth be told, Motorhum had started feeling cramped years ago, and Ivy always half suspected she'd never really fit in there. So, yes. Things were good. This was good. She looked ahead to the dark of night and the wild and unexplored territory of the Wastes and nodded once. This was good. For the best, at the very least. Better the twins grew up with good memories of her, rather than fried to a crisp by something she made and couldn't control. This was good. She said it again as a foreign prickle began in her eyes and something thick and solid lodged at the back of her throat. Good. This was good. xxx She wouldn't have guessed she could sleep in the arms of a Jäger jogging through the Wastelands in the middle of the night, her hair smelling of smoke, barefoot and on the run. But she must have dozed off at some point, because one minute, she was stealing one final glance at Motorhum (or perhaps just a boulder that looked like Motorhum), and the next she was half waking to find herself on the ground amidst ruined stone walls and a giant tree. It took her a long, dazed moment of blinking dumbly at Jötz to remember where she was and why, and another several seconds to recall none of it was dream or nightmare. When that was done, she studied their surroundings, about to ask where they were, then deciding against it. Motorhum was long gone, she knew. Maybe it was best to find out just how gone by the light of a proper dawn. As it were, the moon had nearly faded from the sky. She yawned at looked at her travel companion. "I guess...I ought to thank you," she started awkwardly. "For...y'know, rescuing me from the fire. And the mob. But also..." She coughed, blushed, studied the hem of her apron. "Well, thanks." When she could look at him again, she tilted her head to the side, expression quizzical. "Do you want to sleep? In Logan's stories, when people are...um...on the run, one person sleeps, and the other keeps watch." She chewed her lip for a moment, then nodded at the lower of the two walls, suddenly excited. "I could watch from there," she said, pointing at a little sunken area of worn bricks. She considered asking for his newly remodeled gun, then thought better of it. Saving rounds and all. -- “Nah,” Jotz waived her off towards the nook as he settled himself against the trunk of the tree. “Don’t need as much sleep as youse townspipple. Youse relax youself a bit, Miss Ivy, ‘nd I wake you closer to dawn. Less stuff happen as da sun come up.” He pulled out the hand cannon from beneath his cloak, followed by an oil cloth from one of the innumerable pouches on his belt. Now was not the time to clean the weapon properly, but a quick oiling could never hurt! He kept a careful watch on the Spark as he ran the cloth over the metal meticulously. She was young, she was intelligent and she was alone in a world she didn’t know. It was not a combination that could produce any good results, especially should things become any more the dangerous for them. Normal people froze or fled when confronted with life-threatening circumstances, some few bravely standing their ground or insanely throwing themselves at the danger. Sparks, however, tended too much to watch in appreciation. New stimuli produced new ideas, new machines, new mayhem! Throw in how difficult a teenager could be to start with? Jotz vaguely remembered his teenage years, and it was not with any sort of nostalgia. Then add in the increased feelings of isolation since she had just been… well… isolated! “If youse not too sleepy, we could talk,” the monster figure offered diffidently. “I gots lots of stories. Da Caves of Proust. Da Watchmen of Count Schwundgrad. Da Fall of Lady Jia-Jang und her Stalvart Soldiers of Straw.” He should his head sadly. “Vhy she tought an army made outta hay vast a goot idea ist beyond me! Took forever to get da smoke outta my fur!” He fixed a careful eye on Ivy, keeping his face placid and calm. “So… vhat chou wanna hear about?" -- Ivy considered for a moment, then shrugged. Playing with the pistol she'd made him sounded like more fun...but she supposed sleeping was the practical option. "Alright," she acquiesced. "If you're sure." She didn't feel tired, though. Or rather, she didn't feel sleepy. Tired, maybe, from the days events, or just the knowledge that had come with it. But sleep could wait for the moment. Perhaps that was just because it was the first night she'd ever spent away from Motorhum, or even away from her home. She might have made allowances for her bed, except she'd used to sneak out onto the roof when it got too warm on summer nights. If she didn't think about it too much, she could pretend this was that. But her face lit up at the mention of stories. They were none like she'd ever heard. Mama Petra and the other townsfolk had plenty of stories about Sparks and the endless wars between them. One of the men in the town had been able to recall half a hundred different Spark-y inventions he swore up and down he'd seen first hand, all with some grand tale of escape...or not. But when she'd asked questions, he'd always turned her away or told her he couldn't remember. Sparks in a town like Motorhum were bogeymen, scary stories to tell young siblings at night. You could say just about anything and it could be true about some Spark, somewhere. But it all felt safe, because there were no Sparks in Motorhum. Or there hadn't been. Ivy brushed away the thought with a shake of her head, pushing an incorrigible lock of hair from her eyes. She stifled a yawn and sat up with her back against the wall, her arm wrapped around her knees. The apron she'd carefully until and folded aside, tucked behind her for safe keeping. She beamed cautiously at Jötz. "I can stay up a little longer," she said eagerly. "Logan knew all those stories, but I never heard any of these. I bet he'd love them." She paused for the briefest of moments, lifting her eyes to study the stars, before looking back at her travel companion. "I want to hear them all." -- “All,” Jotz laughed, “Dot’s a lotta stories! How abouts I tells chou da von about Da Ghost Oft Da Vastes fur now, hmm?” He settled back agains the tree roots and started his tale about a time before the Wastes, before the wars even, when the countryside was more or less peaceful. It was of an age when The Storm King ruled. And as he told his tale, Jotz’s accent seemed to disappear the more involved he got into telling the story. Had he been faking it or playing it up all along? Or was it simply that once the story was started, his distinctive way of talking became… normal in comparison. “… and so the Great Canals connected all of Europa, you see. The massive earth diggers they used to dig the ditches and waterways were then easily converted into steam barges to keep down on the waste, and the engineers and pilots who did all of this became the first canallers. They were a lot like tinkers and gypsies, you see? They had their own way of talking and doing things, their own slang and customs. Canallers got themselves a bit of reputation as scoundrels and rogues, yet the stories and songs that survive to this day made them out to be pretty popular with the common folks. Maybe it was because their lives seemed so much free-er than the folks in town or the farmers in their fields. “Only the burghers and mayors and the like, they didn’t think too highly of the canallers. Sure, they were needed to transport stuffs from one place to another, but there were nasty rumors of smuggling and child snatching and all sorts of evil stuff like that. After a few generations, they were considered the worse sort of vagabonds! And maybe there was some truth to it, and maybe there wasn’t. Point was, the townsfolk started turning agains the canallers. They were treated almost as badly as minor Sparks are today! “So one day, in a little place called Bad Schuschen, a mob got together. Claimed some canaller girl was causing some troubles-“ A sudden crack caught Jotz’s ear. He stopped suddenly, cocking his head to one side as he listened closely. The swamp had become eerily quiet while he had been telling his tale, almost as though every living thing in the bog had started listening to him relate it. Everything except for the frogs... -- Despite her earlier promises, Ivy was nearly asleep well before her Jötz finished his story, having curled on one side, her apron tucked under her head. Her hair did its job in betraying her, tumbling down to curl over her cheeks and nose, finding all manner of loose leaves and twigs on the ground behind her. Even so, she seemed untouched by this or the cold, or even the fact that she had effectively run away from a home that no longer wanted her. She had spent the last ten years or so being story'd to sleep by one of her younger brothers, and she'd found, fairly early on in this one, that if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend the Jäger was Logan, albeit older, growly-er, and greener. It was a good story, though, exactly the sort Logan would love, and she tried hard to store away the finer details even as she drifted off, promising herself she would find some way to send it home, even if it meant adopting a pseudonym. Logan would love that, thinking he had a mystery pen pal. And all the better if that pen pal was a Spark on the run! She might never have noticed Jötz had stopped talking if only the frogs hadn't been so loud. Everything else around them had fallen silent, leaving Ivy to imagine her life as a gypsy-Spark-canaller, or something equally appealing. But it was not so long before her subconscious realized the story she'd fallen asleep on had been replaced by a rather irksome croaking. Ivy frowned in her sleep, blearily opening first one green eye, then the other, then sitting up slowly, drawing a hand across her face and leaving a streak of mud behind. Oblivious, she turned to Jötz, yawning. "I wazn 'sleep," she protested sleepily. "You were at the part 'bout pirates and...snatchin'...somethin'..." It was then she realized he wasn't really listening to her, and started to relax, thinking she might have successfully acted her way out of trouble -- when the croaking seemed suddenly to swell and then stop all at once. Ivy blinked and frowned. That wasn't right. Either she was dreaming, or... One hand snaked into her apron pocket even as she looked up to see three rather large, bluish toads sitting atop their wall, staring down at Ivy and Jötz with bulbous eyes. Ivy canted her head to one side, then whispered across to the Jäger in a manner that might have been conspiratorial if it weren't so...loud. "Are we still hiding?" she asked, still digging around in her pocket for something that might be useful, in the event they needed something useful. "'Cause if so, I think maybe we're not doing a very good job." -- Jötz looked up to the top of the wall to see the three blue toads staring down at them. Each was the size of a large cat, their skins slimy and covered in warts so large that they stood out in the moonlight. Part of him wanted to argue that read toads weren’t supposed to be slimy, they were dry skinned creatures. Frogs were slimy. Newts were slimy. But there was something about the trio of amphibians that definitely said ‘toad.’ He would have loved to say that they were glaring down at him and Ivy, only expressions on faces such as those were really unreadable. They might have been angry. They might have been hungry. Perhaps they were merely curious. The only thing that the Jaeger could discern was that they were toads. And blue. “I tink ve vas hidink,” he whispered back, “Und now ve starts runnink.” Then he realized there was a croak behind him, from the other side of the tree. Looking over his shoulder and around the trunk revealed a number of other blue, slimy, warty toads with bulbous eyes… all staring back at him. Slowly, Jötz turned around again to look up at the first three. There was nothing in his memory that he could recall about creatures like this. Were they natural creatures created by accident, or were they constructs crafted by some crazed Spark for whatever reason? More importantly, were they actually a threat? The villagers seemed to think so, otherwise this swamp would have been drained for farmland ages ago. “Hooo-kay,” he drawled out in a whisper back to Ivy. “Zo maybe runnink iz no so goot an idea. Dey iz behind us, too.” Hefting his newly reconfigured gun, he raised an eyebrow as he mused over the idea of a nice little fight to try it out. Then again, they were outnumbered and in enemy territory. No, wait. Wasn’t that the perfect time to try it out?? He decided to give Ivy a bit of a lead and let her decide. The toads hadn’t actually attacked yet. “Zo. Chou ist a Spark, ja? Dis iz Sparky-stuff. Whatchu tink?" -- Ivy, once again, wasn't really listening, staring at the large beryl toads as if transfixed. "Hm?" she murmured, frowning as if in thought. The appearance of the giant toad monsters on the ground behind Jötz had startled her, but now she couldn't look away. Or stop inching toward them. "Stop saying that," Ivy went on, still sounding rather dazed. Another trio of toads had arranged itself in front of her -- or rather, she had had arranged herself in front of the trio -- and now she knelt before them, slowly lowering herself onto her elbows until she was eye-level with the nearest of the three. "I'm not a Spark. Or not a good one, I just..." Whatever she was 'just' was lost as she put out a cautious finger to poke on of the toads. To her credit, or perhaps the toad's, it did nothing until her finger came in squishy contact with one bulbous eyeball. Then it let out a sound that might have been a croak, but sounded more like a snarling screaming, opening its mouth far larger than any creature ought to have been able to achieve, revealing six rows of tiny needlelike teeth. Ivy reared back, but the look on her face was one of abstract delight. "These are the kind that killed Toley!" she exclaimed, as the toads started up their chorus again. "They hate loud noises. And fire!' Her eyes flicked back to Jötz for a moment, then down this his new hand cannon, and back up. She frowned. "Why are you just sitting there?! Gimme." Without waiting for an answer, she leapt up and snatched her fun -- er, his gun -- from his hands, aimed (sort of) and fired. He had never bothered to fulyl reload after she'd shown him how to use it, so only three rounds remained in the barrels. The concussions all came less than a half a second apart, each giving Ivy a chance to find a new target. Boom. The first round struck the base of the tree, carving out a smoldering hollow the twice the size of her fist and smattering toad innards around she and Jötz like rain. Boom. The second round the buried under six inches of loose earth under the lowest of the remaining walls, causing the whole thing to tremble, creak, and groan...and ultimately, hold out as it had been doing for many years already. Ivy grinned almost manic. She knew she liked fire. And explosions. But demolition was a hobby she hadn't yet had to to enjoy, and she planned to do so very much now. Boom. Unfortunately, it was not to be. The first two shots had rendered Ivy unstable, and the third had finished the work, sending the last round wide -- though it did knock a few stones (and more than a few toads) off the top of the wall. Ivy scowled again, then shrugged and tossed the gun aside carelessly before scrambling to her feet. "There," she half sang to no one in particular. "Bought us time." And then she was digging through her aprons pockets again, humming numbers under her breath. She was not long in her creation this time. Whether it simply required less involvement or less know-how never actually occurred. It was only a few minutes later when Ivy half turned back to Jötz. The toads were still screaming, alarmed or angered by her earlier display, though caution made them wary in any second wave attacks. Assuming they were attacking. Ivy did. They probably were. Or they weren't, but she'd already finished her new toy and needed something to test it on. The new toy, or toys, as it were, had actually been constructed from old toys. Two small handfuls of her younger sister's little metal jacks, all rigged to create little detonations when they struck the ground (or when a toad struck a jack) hard enough. The explosions probably wouldn't do any more than scare a toad as big as these were. One or two might lose a limb. But they were made mostly to create light and sound. Lots of sound. Ivy grinned and pulled a jack out of the bunch, hurling one at a toad just creeping over the partly crumbled wall. It struck and exploded with enough force to send the toad hurtling back, creating a brief but deafening crack in the night air. Ivy giggled, delighted, jumping up an down. Perfect! And she had whole handfuls left! She held out cupped hands to Jötz, still vibrating with excitement. "See? You wanna try 'em all at once?" -- Jotz swore under his breath as she let loose with the cannon fire. Grabbing his hat tight to his head, he rolled behind her in hopes that it was the safest place to be, although at that moment anywhere not in front of that gun was the safest place to be! The roar of the gun was deafening. While Ivy could not hit the broadside of a barn, it quickly became apparent that she could damn well hit pretty much everything else! In fact, the Jager decided then and there that the best way to teach her to shoot was to not aim at what she wanted to hit! Stone chips bounced off of him as the third shot caused several ancient bricks to shatter. When she oh-so-casually dropped the four barreled pistol that blew apart pretty much anything in its path of fire, Jotz was quick to snatch it up and start reloading. As Ivy fumbled into her apron pockets to bring forth Sparky death, Jotz rose up and laid down what cover fire he could with judicious blasts of the hand cannon. Whatever bizarre improvement her madness had done to improve it, it was impressive! Jotz could only compare it to a small caliber Clank-Gun with only some of the recoil. ‘Some’ meaning that he could still stand after firing it. More frog guts fountained into the nighttime air with each hit. Only the damn things kept coming! They weren’t swarming as they had a second ago, but their ranks surrounding them continued to swell as replacements arrived from who-knew-where. *CRACK* Whirling around, Jotz came face to face with a wildly grinning Ivy. In her palms were a number of small jacks that had been… “All of dem at vonce?!” he asked incredulously. “Ve’d go def!!” Suddenly the ancient stone wall behind them shuddered as if struck by something very large and heavy. There followed a sound that might have been called a ‘ribbitt’ if it had been uttered by something the size of an elephant. The wall shuddered again, several stones falling to roll away towards their feet. In the darkness, Jotz couldn’t quite be sure, but he thought he could make out the shape of two bulbous eyes roughly the size of street lamps each. That was when it became obvious to him that the toads hadn’t really attacked. Not yet. No, they had been waiting for reinforcements. He did some quick mental calculations in his head based on his observations of the blue toads that surrounded them now; if the thing on the other side of the barrier had similar warts, as rough and thick in proportion, Ivy’s little ‘cracker-jacks’ may not do much good. “But dey ist do-ink nice tings mit hearing aides und trumpets und da like dese days, I hears,” he hastily amended as he scooped up a handful, “Zo, ja! All at vonce! Vhat a great idea!” With the strength only a Jager could manage, he hurled the explosive caltrops with great force at the toads on the far side of the tree before grabbing her arm and yanking her along to follow as he ran into the open swamp. The resulting din was indeed near deafening and left a heavy ringing in his ears; bringing his hand cannon to bear on those toads that came too close, Jotz couldn’t even hear the gun going off. There was no point in looking over his shoulder to see if any of the toads were following: either they weren’t and all was well and good, or they were and time would be wasted with looking. All he knew was that they had to get out in the open. If whatever monstrosity had been behind that wall caught them cornered like that again, it would be doubtful they could escape. Far better that they stay out in the clear, giving them better options to try to escape. The toads already knew they were there, anyway, so there was no point in hiding. As they ran, Jotz found himself grinning ear to ear. And here he had thought the Wastes were going to be boring!![/hider] Ivy might have been annoyed at her furry travel companion for dragging her away from the action...if she hadn't been so utterly, completely and totally thrilled by the action itself. It seemed almost unbelievable. One minute, silence. Stories about floating castles or pirate robots, or something -- she could hardly remember anymore -- the next, there were toads, and toad innards, and explosions she was positive would win her some sort of prize thrice over in anyone had heard. And they most certainly had. At this point, the sleepy occupants of Motorhum would undoubtedly be after them again, which was just as well, because her apron was running low, and she wanted to make more loud noises. She giggled to herself, avoiding stumbling along by some miracle, as she stared at the teetering remains of the charred walls they'd tried to use to keep the swamps where the swamps belonged. It was a long moment before she realized she couldn't hear herself -- or anything, really -- over the high-pitched whine in her ears. That threatened to upset her manic giddiness, afraid she was missing more explosions, until she remembered she only couldn't hear because her first (or third? Or fifth? Whatever) Sparky venture had probably obliterated her obnoxiously normal eardrums. She'd have to fix that later. For now, she had the few remaining toads to consider...though none of them seemed to be following. They had instead clustered around the base of the wall the giant toad king, or whatever it was, had been using as a shield. Apparently, not a very effective one. Ivy dug her heels in hard against Jötz's retreat. "Stop!" she demanded imperiously. "We have to go back!" Or at least, she hoped that was what she said. It was hard to tell. There was [i]some[/i] reason the warty little projectiles weren't following. She wondered idly if they were poisonous. She was sure she could use their grimy skins in some way. Perhaps an amphibian clank. That speared fish. And small fishing vessels. Ivy wasn't much for competition.