SHiZhen hid behind a stalagmite as boiling steam blew past. Her breath unsteady, she recounted the events that led up to this point. After finishing the last test, she was feeling quite proud of herself, having received wonderful praise from Headmaster Hargor. She rememebred taking a quick break, before stairs opened in the ground, and she descended. The humidity alone should have been a warning. The ground had started rumbling, and she had been fortunate to have been behind this particular stalagmite when the geyser blew. Several bursts of hot steam later, and ShiZhen still cowered behind the stalagmite. She tried to see if there was a regular interval between spurts, like some famous geysers were known to have, but she was too flustered, and her counting irregular, that she was never sure if she got the timing right. She peeked around occasionally looking for other stalagmites she could hide behind, but she didn't dare risk making the sprint without knowing the timing and without some form of protection. Unlike some of her fellow water elementals, ShiZhen didn't know how to make ice yet. In fact, Miss Hargreaves had proposed that ShiZhen's specialty was humidity. So she couldn't rightly cover herself in ice armor to fend off the steam, or even make a half decent riot shield. As she sat there, drenched in perspiration, a thought came to her. She rememebred seeing something in her chemistry class. Someone dipped their hand in water, then quickly thrust it into molten lead, only to take their hand out unscathed. It was called the Leidenfrost Effect. Of course, ShiZhen was already nervous, so water was already collecting on her body. By concentrating a bit more, she was able to coat her body in a thin layer of water. But would this be enough? She tried to think of other things she could use to insulate herself with. In the end she settled on expanding Kracko a bit, and letting the could surround her, creating a high pressure, high humidity volume around herself, though this probably wouldn't do much good, since the jet of water could easily shear away the cloud. Still, water had a high heat capacitance, and just having water, even evaporated water, between herself and the heat should greatly mitigate the damage she might receive a blast. Regardless, taking a geyser blast full on was game over. Thus armored, ShiZhen waited for the next blast. As soon as it subsided, she ran to the next stalagmite. And waited. Next blast. Next stalagmite. Wait. So far, the stalagmites were close enough together that there was plenty of time to make it from one to the next. But as she reached the end of the cave, the stalagmites were further and further apart. Until she could see the exit, which was just too far for her to run to before the next blast. Taking a deep breath, ShiZhen tried to calm herself. She waited for the blast. But before it had completely subsided, when there was still quite a lot of hot steam in the way, she bolted. Much to her relief, the combination of cloud and layer of water surrounding her body succeeded in insulating her from the heat. And she was out. And completely crestfallen at the sight of the glacier. She could already see the cold chipping away at Kracko, who was quickly losing vapor and precipitating. The layer of water that had protected ShiZhen from the heat was going to make this next part extremely difficult. If she let go of the water, it would start evaporating, freezing her much faster, but if she kept it on, she might freeze parts of her body to the glacier, which she had no doubt she had to climb. ShiZhen stared in desperate awe at the sight.
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