Finding A way In
It turned out that finding Brant's cave was the easy part. Kaelyn and Mason spent day after agonizing day in the wizards' workshop, trying to find a ay to break through the illusive barrier. The workshop now resembled an actual workshop, with papers, notes, books, and miscellaneous substances scattered widely. They used one page of the notebook carefully cut and analyzed, to configure their data, to get a sense of the powers against them.
Sonja and Colm offered a little help here and t here, but for the most part the younger artisans worked alone, and Mason's diffident nature started to fall away.
“No, that's not going to work, the power can't just be drained away, without a channel or a pool or a reservoir, it's going to spark up or....something. We need a way to drain the power that doesn't blow us up or burn us to a crisp.”
“So where do we put all that energy? And how are they generating it?”
“That's part of what worries me. Any spell that holds that much power would burn through resources at a tremendous rate, and I don't know what resources he's got in there. Or what resources he can burn through.”
“I still think we should try to find a different way in—”
It seems like Brant has been planning this for a while, if there was another entrance he would have covered it as well as he's covered the main one. We don't have enough time to go looking for a crack he hasn't noticed.”
“But what about translocation?”
“Through solid rock? The energy we'd need would be insane, and if we missed we'd end up buried in the rock, which...well, that usually explodes, actually.”
“So we move the rock—” Kaelyn began but Mason was already objecting
“We don't have time to understand the structure, and we could bring the whole cave down on them, even if we had the power to just blithely move part of a mountain.”
Kaelyn stood up. They'd been over all of this already, a dozen times. Mason was doing is best, she knew he was, but that didn't make her less tense or frustrated at the slow progress they were making. She wanted to yell or make something big and stupid happen. Which wasn't' like her, normally, but right now she needed action more than anything.
“Do you need me for the next few hours?” She asked Mason, who looked surprised. “Ah, no, not really. What'I'm doing will take a while, and is mostly calculations..”
“Okay. I'm going to walk and clear my head, try to come up with any new ideas. I'll be back in a bit.”
Kaelyn headed outside, just walking, trying not to be too angry or frustrated. This wasn't supposed to be so hard! She had found the cave, they both had. She had found a way to listen to Daisy, she had made os much progress. But now she was stuck, and there was nothing she could do to get un-stuck faster.
That was the worst part. Mason was working at the speed that worked for what he was doing. He wasn't rushing, wasn't hurrying, was getting things done in the right way. She should be content to do the same. But she wasn't.
She wanted the right way to be the fast way and that was the problem. The universe seemed to disagree with her.
But even if Mason didn't think moving rocks was a good idea that didn't mean he was right. She didn't have to move all that much rock, just enough to get past the barrier. Or dirt. Dirt was easier. She could figure out where the dirt was soft or weak...She realized that flooding the cave would certainly alert Brant to what she was doing, but she thought she could do what needed done without flooding it, which would of course be better. All she needed was a trickle.
Water magic was not, strictly speaking, part of a Healer's stock in trade, but it often came in handy. Having water close to hand when working was often a great benefit for a healer. Kaelyn searched the ravine near the cave and eventually found a small rivulet running down the hill just beyond and a few feet above the cave entrance. She drew a line with her finger from the edge of the main watercourse over the front of the cave entrance, then spread it out, making little channels that would run over the entire front facade that Brant was projecting. Walking back to the rivulet she sat down and sang a little song to the water, one that she had learned from the Druids back home.
A portion of the stream turned, moved uncertainly towards her. She dipped her finger in the water and led it to the course she had laid out in the dirt. It wasn't anywhere near deep enough to support the stream but water is good at digging. It found the course she laid out and flowed quickly downwards, sweeping the course wider and deeper as it went. When it got to the place where she spread it out the water ran in twisting ribbons down the face of the illusion, which meant it often ducked below the apparent rock face. She watched the edges of the illusion, looking for anywhere that the water flowed backwards, or seeped instead of flowing...ah, there it is.
Near the bottom, on the right side, was a place where a stream of water disappeared inwards, Kaelyn watched it for a few moments, wishing she had a way to dispel the illusion without alerting the residents. But she was sure now, the water didn't re-emerge lower down, it was going into the cave.
Looking closer, she was sure there was soft dirt there, she could feel the wet mud between the cracks of the illusory granite. She didn't need much, just a place where a little encouragement could be given, a little force applied.
And suddenly she realized that this was what she had actually wanted; not to upstage Mason, but to find a way to help. Her contribution to his plan was minimal thus far, but working together they could get into the cave, and probably quite quickly.
She went back to the source of her little stream and guided it back to its main waterway. The stream she had created dried up and she started heading back to town. She felt a lot better than she had.
Daisy watched with interest as a small stream of water made its way into the cave. Looking around quickly she realized that, yes, she was at the lowest point in the cavern, so it would make its way to her, possibly before Brant saw it. In a way it was helpful; this let her know that the cave entrance wasn't too far up that passage; she had wondered how deep they were in the cave.
Brant's rants had settled over the past few days, possibly because she didn't seem to be responding to them in any meaningful way, and these days he mostly slept or paced nervously. The demon hadn't made another appearance since Daisy had spoken with it, but she suspected that was more because of the effort it took to summon it than any result of her meddling.
Daisy was pretty sure she could walk out of this cavern any time she wanted, but for some reason she also felt that this wasn't the time, and if she did it at the wrong time it wouldn't work. Leaning back on the stone wall she tried to parse out these...premonitions? Intuitions? Crazy thoughts? She wasn't sure what they were, to be honest. But she was sure that leaving right now didn't fit, didn't make sense.
So...she could do whatever she wanted, as long as it was the right thing to do. She wasn't sure that made sense either, but it felt right.
Watching the water trickle and flow down the cave floor towards her, she felt like there was something to learn there. The water moved where it fit, but once it was in place it could move other things as well. This whole cave had been carved out by water, after all.