--- Lily ---

Lily carefully used her shadows and remaining mana to cut through the ceiling. Kat’s mental map had ensured she had a pretty good idea of where she was ending up... though she was erring on the side of caution. Appoline had brewing equipment set up after all, and dumping whatever the roof was made out of into an unstable potion wasn’t a great idea. So Lily was leaning more towards the hallway... perhaps a bit too far.

When the small hole she’d cut was opened up Lily found herself looking down at the hall. Still, cutting another hole would just mean she was wasting time, so Lily jumped down, even using a tiny bit of mana to make shadow wings instead of her own. The risk of making noise due to the pain was too high and the mana cost was miniscule and easy to justify. It did still hurt a bit when she reached the ground, but that was just from movement at all. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Lily went to open the door with her shadow... but instead it bounced off an invisible wall. Fuck. How did she manage this?

[It’s specifically Appoline’s door. Or at least, the barrier you just hit doesn’t cover anything else. I managed to spot it when it flashed for a moment. You can either try to break it... or maybe go in from above. I’m not sure if the barrier will cover everything...]

As Kat was about to explain Lily’s options the door instead opened to reveal Appoline there. Seeing she was here, Lily transformed and suddenly, most of her pain was gone. It did hurt to perform the transformation itself... but her human form hadn’t taken any damage, so why would it be hurt? Oh right. "Appoline we’ve got a problem. Brook is going crazy and Kat’s trapped in a fancy ward she can’t get out of without some major risks. Also, your door is warded," Lily rattled off.

Appoline nodded, tapping it a bit with her foot. A slight flash appeared where Appoline’s shoe made contact but otherwise nothing spectacular happened. Appoline then shifted to the side slightly... and punched through the wall. Lily’s jaw dropped. "It’s just the fucking door?"

Appoline nodded, "Yes. This was meant to be hidden and mostly undetectable so minimal work was done..." Appoline stopped her explanation as her head snapped towards the end of the hallway. Lily got the idea and transformed, readying herself. For now, she wanted to keep her injuries all on one form. Even if it hurt to use.

As Appoline expected, Brook rounded the corner where her eyes immediately went to the wall. "Damn, couldn’t you have just be an idiot obsessed with potions?" asked Brook.

"Surely you don’t think me so inept I would miss the easy solution to a hasty ward?" asked Appoline. Brook’s response was to send several more light grenades towards the pair. Appoline threw a single potion through the hole in the wall and Lily, noticing that, threw up several paper walls around her, wincing at the mana cost.

As the grenades erupted, they cracked Appoline’s potion as well, breaking open the bottle and releasing the odd grey liquid inside. As soon as it touched the outside air the liquid started to dry into small little orbs that were covering the area and absorbing the light. As they did so they turned from grey to white and fell to the ground. Brook eyed them warily as Lily’s defences vanished to give her a view of what happened.

Brook clearly wasn’t keen to move forward so Lily sent her shadows towards the wall and shredded it, doing her best to give Appoline enough space to squeeze through if she wanted. Lily still had to wince though. That combined with her short lived and wasted barriers were burning away her reserves. She was inching towards ten percent remaining and it was not a good feeling.

Still... she seemed to have a bit more time. Appoline’s potion had left Brook unsure and that was something. Though how long it would hold is another matter. Lily grit her teeth and glanced towards Appoline, when she did, Appoline made a quick gesture with her eyes towards the gap. Did... she want it to be larger? It wasn’t huge, barely big enough for Appoline to slip through and likely not comfortable... or did she want Lily to go inside? It would be easier for them to work together and defend that way...

Lily decided it had to be the second option. Mostly because she could not justify the mana expenditure if it was actually the first. She took the chance presented to her by Brook’s hesitation and launched herself through the gap, entirely with physical strength. It amplified the burn across her body, but at this point that was just par for the course and was hardly distracting.

Lily tumbled into the room. Not having set herself up for a properly landing and the sharp stab of pain she attracted as each different section of her body rolled across the floor wasn’t great. Still... she was safer for now. "Running away now? What a shame... I suppose I’ll just have to prepare for you both out here," stated Brook, clearly loud enough for them both to hear.

Lily glanced up at Appoline and decided to risk a transformation. "What do you think she’s doing?" asked Lily.

"I’d guess she’s going to set up some sort of poison or trap. We might want to take her out... but the fact of the matter is that she has hostages. Now they’re only so useful because once she kills or injures them... well she can’t do it a second time. So she needs to make the most out of whatever opening that gives her. The fact she didn’t just say she was off to kill them now implies that she thinks she needs them alive for one reason or another, at least for the moment so don’t worry about that," Appoline whispered swiftly. Making use of their improved hearing to have a conversation with Lily where they both whispered.

"Well what should we do?" asked Lily.

"That’s the question. She clearly thinks that whatever time she gains here is worth more time her than it is to us. Perhaps it’s just a wariness to confront me in a room I am have fortified myself but it’s hard to tell. I didn’t know Brook before she turned traitor so I certainly don’t know how she’d act if everything I’ve seen up until now was just a performance," explained Appoline.

"Can you make anything for this?" asked Lily.

"Not really. I’ve got what I’ve managed to stockpile in my breaks but that’s about it. Most of the ingredients I grabbed earlier with Kat have been used up and the ones I have aren’t potent enough for me to make something quick and useful. I can make some stuff that glows and looks powerful but that’s about everything. Though I have healing potions and I should probably apply those to you," offered Appoline.

"Actually that would be great," agreed Lily as she transformed and hopped up onto the table so that Appoline could reach her. Lily was expecting a bit of care... instead Appoline just pulled out two healing potions and dumped them over Lily. Lily coughed, spluttering not having expected to just be drenched like that, and she slipped falling on the table and soaking it more healing potions. The fact that this was arguably optimal galled Lily and Kat was laughing on the other end of the link.

Lily shivered as her skin started to cool and the pain retreated. Some sections got a bit itchy, but for the most part the pain was simply vanishing. Lily bit and scratched at the few outliers and that saw chunks of dead skin coming away with ease, leaving behind fresh skin. Lily brushed a few spots that might have been missed before hopping down from the table and transforming. "How come some parts had skin coming off?" asked Lily.

"Well that skin was probably dead," Appoline answered with a shrug. "Just easier to grow a new layer I suppose. Though just a warning, if you take more serious damage I’m not certain how well lower end healing potions will work. For higher ranked individuals you usually need more powerful ones to heal them."

"Why did it work here then?" asked Lily.

Appoline glared at her and bonked her on the head. "Why do you think?"

"Because... because it was mostly just sunburn? It hurt a lot but it wasn’t actually serious or permanent damage to me?" Lily offered.

"Correct. Use your brain a bit more instead of asking easy questions. You know plenty about alchemy at this point, and my answer should’ve given you the entire thing if you were thinking about it," grumbled Appoline.

"Sorry... I guess I wanted to know, but just went straight to asking instead of thinking. Um... what’s the plan now that I’m healed? I still have almost no mana... unless you have mana potions?" asked Lily.

"Of course not, those things are expensive," Appoline answered, immediately killing that idea.