FULL NOVELXO Chapter 1363 1363 BO-AT
contemporary romance
--- Lily ---
In the end, Lily decided to put off looking for answers for now. The best thing about investigating a race track was that it was circular, so she would eventually make her way back to the start. That allowed her to look for treasure chests, and see how much time that took her before coming back and searching for the paper if she felt like she had time. Lily suspected she would feel like she didn't, but that was just a guess.
Lily ducked into the current, just a touch. She made sure to stay on the edge where she could easily slip out of the artificial slipstream to investigate the first 'ring' when she arrived. It was a much slower and calmer ride, though she did have to fight a little bit not to get turned around due to only having the one wing in the current.
With the current helping her, it didn't take Lily long to reach the first ring, and even less time to see the hidden treasure chest. In fact, she was more surprised that she didn't notice it when she made her first pass. Lily chalked it up to being slightly panicked, and the position. It was pressed up against the wall that was in the direction she'd just come from. Now the issue was… how to get down to it.
Lily knew she'd have to swim through the current to get down to it… and the ring wasn't exactly large. If she let the current take her she'd be swiftly removed from the ring and have nothing to grab onto. Lily considered just reaching down with her shadow, but put that idea temporarily to the side.
*I think I'd rather save my mana. I'll use my shadow if I have to… but I feel like I'm missing some other easy solution. It's not approaching from the side, because I feel like I'd just be pushed into the current as I come up over the lip. So that's obviously not it. I just need to stick to the wall… wait no I'm an idiot.*
Lily swam down to just below the current and transformed. Now that she had hands again it was a simple matter to reach up with one of those and then swim forward. Lily let herself be spun around by the current while reaching out with her other hand so that she had a more comfortable hold on things. From there it was easy to pull her legs in and use them to push open the chest.
Lily wasn't ready for the piece of paper to be in the chest. Nor was she ready for it to go flying out into the current and get quickly swept away. *Welp. I'm not getting that one.* Lily turned away from the current and back to the chest below her feet. Inside of the chest was a vase. Lily was a little sad it didn't seem to be something she could use, but it was quite pretty. Swirls of colours that seemed to have been baked into the vase itself when it was made.
Lily instinctively reached down to pick it up and put it in her bag… just as the she felt her grip slipping. Lily quickly aborted the movement to return both hands to firmly being on the stone to keep her in place. *Ok… this might be a bit more difficult then I'd thought it would be. I need to grab the vase and I can't, easily, use my hands. So… what do I need to use my feet? I'm not sure I'm dexterous enough to use my feet for this… and I'll lose points if I drop it and it gets damaged. Of course, if I just leave it there I get nothing. So I have to try something… do I just use my magic then? Urgh. Fine. It should be quick. Nothing too expensive.*
Lily contorted her shadow and sent it down to gently grab the vase. Wrapping a shadowy hand around the neck of the vase and pulling it over to her bag was easy. A slight split in the shadow to get a second hand to open said bag was trivial. Lily just had to make sure the vase was lowered into it gently and things would be fine.
Of course, 'would be' fine was the main sticking point. The bag seemed to be just the wrong size to fit the vase in easily… but close enough that it should be possible. Gritting her teeth, and cursing the waste of mana, Lily simply went for it. She pulled herself out of the current and down below it dragging the vase with her, being careful not to have it touch the rocks on the way.
Once she was outside of the current Lily let go of her shadow and pulled the vase into her hands. From there she tried to shove the vase into the bag bottom first. This failed like it did the first time, so she swapped it around and the top went in easily. Just to get stuck when the bottom flared out. No problem. They were underwater and the vase wasn't going to drop if she was a bit rough with it.
So Lily started to finagle it. Slowly pulling the opening of the bag a bit wider and wiggling the vase from side to side as she pushed it deeper into the opening. It took some time, but Lily was making clear progress. Lily did have to give the vase a good shove when it reached the widest section, but once that was through the vase just seemed to fall into the bag. Lily's hand snapped downwards grabbing it before it fell too far and gently pushing it off to the side before letting go.
Once the bag was securely shut, something Lily was sure of because she checked twice, it was a simple matter to hop back into the edge of the current and look over the next ring. Sadly for Lily, there wasn't any hidden treasure in this one. At least, not that she could see in the quick check she did. Of course, Lily didn't want to waste time at this point. Her check was quick, but thorough for what it was. So she moved on, checked out the third ring. Once again, no chest.
This time though, Lily noticed something on the side of the rock formation the ring was situated in. Swimming downwards she found…a button? Pressing it Lily looked around and nothing seemed to happen. She looked at the button again, ready to press it a second time but it was still pressed down. Lily pressed it again just to be sure, but it didn't move at all. From there Lily did a quick trip around the stone but found no further buttons.
Next ring? Another button. This one was hidden in the same place the treasure chest was in the first ring, so she knew what she was doing and hit that one with her foot in human form and then continued on. Another two rings went by with nothing to show for it, but the ring after that had a third button.
This time something happened. The ground seemed to shake for a few seconds as a hole opened in the centre of the arena. Lily swam over to it, keeping mind the ring she was up to. It was a bit over halfway around the track. As Lily got over the hole in the ground she could see a very obvious chest right in the centre of it. Swimming down Lily threw the chest open and found that it was deeper inside then it looked. The treasure was also really, really weird. Inside of the chest was a boat. Not a model of a boat. But a fully sized fishing vessel.
*What? No seriously what? What am I meant to do with this? Does it work underwater? How do I get it out? The chest may be big enough to contain it all, but I can't exactly drive the boat up and out of it. Even if it's a very magical boat that works underwater the opening for the treasure chest just isn't big enough for me to get it out of there. What… what the heck am I meant to do here? Do I spend time worrying about this? It seems like it could be useful if I want to keep running away… but like… it's a boat. No stealth to speak of.*
Lily transformed next to the opening and put her hand inside. Feeling the edges of the box. It was more like a treasure chest with the bottom missing that opened into another room. Lily lightly lifted the box and found that yes, the 'room' moved with the box, so it wasn't just a trick of some kind. *Urgh. This is going to be a pain isn't it? Really what am I supposed to do here? Am I missing something obvious?*
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