Where to Go

Kim had felt that this was a waste of time, but to have Elin and Elmo not returning when she and Jonas had told them was another matter altogether. Although, with how Elmo slow was moving, she doubted that he might have even heard them tell him about how long they should be moving down the trail.

She hadn't worried about it because Elin should have known when to come back. Which would have necessitated her passing Elmo, in turn letting him know to head back, since she would have been going faster than him. Which of course, hadn't happened.

Even Jonas had appeared to be surprised at the turn of events, which didn't soothe her nerves any. So, she felt she would need to talk with Elin when they got a minute to be alone. She had noticed changes in Elin, but she hadn't expected this to occur. It just felt like she was losing touch with what had been happening around her.

Either that or she was more tired than she realized. Not that she really felt tired, just a little fatigued.

So, when she and Jonas decided to start heading down the path, if only to make sure nothing had actually happened to Elin and Elmo, since there wasn't any guarantee they would have seen any danger coming before they were even aware of it.

Though, with her luck, Elmo and Elin had entered a place with warped time that made it where they didn't realize how long it had been and that their time was up. Which, in turn would mean that she and Jonas would encounter Elmo and Elin on their way back. Which would likely cause an abundance of confusion.

Not that she expected things to be like that. Kim was confident that there wasn't anything that was influencing the way Elin would have experienced time. Which meant Elin either had lost track of time herself, was in trouble and couldn't get back, or she'd gotten distracted by something and was held up because of that.

So, when Kim and Jonas made their way through the trail, she found it rather aggravating at how long it was taking for her and Jonas to move through the trail.

Not because it was difficult to squeeze through, but rather how long it kept going on and on. She could feel time passing around her as they kept moving deeper, which meant she'd have to take just as much to get back to where they had been.

If Elin wasn't in trouble herself, Kim knew she wasn't going to be very happy about having to come down herself. Not unless they had found something very significant.

Although, as Jonas and Kim called out for Elmo or Elin, they continued to not get any response. Although, she couldn't say how well their voices would travel here. While theoretically their voices could bounce off the narrow passage in the canyon wall, that didn't mean it would go very far ahead of them. So, she couldn't count on Elmo or Elin even understanding what they were calling out if they could hear them.

When Kim and Jonas reached the widening of the trail, where the pond was, Kim was appalled to see Elin just standing around. Not doing anything other than staring at the pond.

She wanted to be annoyed at Elmo sleeping on the side, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to be that annoyed. She understood what it was like to be tired, and she didn't think that his fatigue from having the viral infection that Elin had already cured had gone away.

When Kim started to talk with Elin about why she hadn't returned, but then Elin only seemed interested in talking with her about the pond. It didn't help Kim's mood when Jonas remarked about how magical the pond seemed, but Kim suddenly wondered if there was a draw between the pond and the others in her group. She was the only one who didn't have MP in her stats, so she couldn't say if there wasn't something that would have otherwise drawn her towards it if she did. Even Elmo had gotten up and was looking at the pond now.

"Uh, there's something about the pond, I think you should know about," Elmo said as Kim was about to turn away from the pond in frustration.

"What about it?" Elin asked curiously without looking away from the pool, almost like it was more interesting than anything else.

"Uh, something about sacrificing stamina or MP to go wherever you want to go?" Elmo answered, sounding a little uncertain.. "I'm not sure what it was about, but when I viewed the stats of the pond, it had that as part of the skills of the pond."

Kim sighed. While she couldn't say that she was especially concerned about the pond or what exactly Elmo found, she felt like there was something in what Elmo said that piqued her interest. Something that she felt was going to be important for them, if nothing else.

"What was it that it said?" Kim asked sharply, pulling Elmo's attention towards her. "Tell me everything you can remember."

"Uh," Elmo hesitated, making Kim wonder if he was going to either refuse or try to make a run for it. She wouldn't be surprised if he did either of them, even though she was confident that she'd still be able to make him talk, regardless of what he did or tried.

In the end, Elmo took a deep breath and said calmly, with no hind that he had been uneasy or nervous a moment before, "I'm not really sure what it said, myself. It mentioned that if we offered a sacrifice of our MP or stamina that we could pick where we wanted to be. I'm not sure if we have to drink the water or jump in it to get that to occur or if we'd need to have a specific location in mind rather than a general idea of where we want to go."

Kim thought about what Elmo said for a few minutes, trying to digest what he said. Yet, Jonas seemed to beat her to the punch. "By 'general idea, you mean like if I wanted to go somewhere that had lots of bacon, right?"

"Uh, I guess?" Elmo replied, sounding as uncertain as Kim was that he even understood what he'd said himself. "It didn't go into much detail. Just that we could pick where we wanted to be if we made that sacrifice."

Jonas nodded, thinking something over to himself. Kim glared at him, unable to keep from feeling like he wasn't sharing what he suspected, but rather keeping it to himself.

"What is it?" Kim asked, a little annoyed with his silence.

Jonas glanced at Kim and shook his head. "Nothing. Just speculating about the likelihood about something."

Kim sighed. "Out with it. What is it that you think could be possible with that?"

Kim was confident Jonas suspected something with it but didn't want to say it. She didn't know what it was that he suspected, but she wasn't going to just let it go without pushing to hear what it was.

"If you're not going to tell us, then when are you going to let us know?" Elin asked before Kim could think of how to force it out of Jonas.

"It's not that I don't want to say, it's more a matter of that I'm still thinking about if it would work or not. Especially with how things are going with this competition," Jonas answered kindly.

"What do you mean?" Kim asked, feeling like this might just be some excuse to get out of explaining his thoughts at all.

Jonas shrugged, like he didn't really see a problem. "Just that if it can let us go anywhere, then if it allowed us to return to our own worlds, how would that affect this competition? I'm sure they'd have something in place to prevent something like that from occurring. So, if we're stopped partway, what happens to us then? Would we end up back here? Would we end up somewhere else? Would we end up trapped somewhere? O am I overthinking things and we'd end up on our own worlds safely?"

Kim felt like her brain was fried. She didn't know what to say in response. She understood what he was getting at, but at the same time, there was just too many questions fired too quickly for her to really process all of them. Especially with how she hadn't even thought about what the implications of what the pond could do would be.

"What if we just don't try to go back to our own worlds?" Elin asked, giving Kim's brain a quick reboot. "If we don't try, we won't need to worry about all those other things."

Jonas sighed as he nodded. "That does make sense, though as long as we all know not to try for that, then I guess we should be fine."

"Then where should we try to go?" Elmo asked looking around. "Uh, or should we just move on from here?"

"No, we should use that," Kim said, feeling like it was their best chance to get back on track. "Let's go where the fire dragon currently is. That way we can at least see about trying to complete that challenge."

Jonas nodded. "That sounds reasonable, but, uh, how do we go about doing that? How do we activate that ability from the pond?"

"Well, we might as well try jumping in," Kim said. "Worst case is we'll just get soaked, but it's not like the rain didn't do that to u anyway, right?"

"Why not try drinking it?" Elin asked, sounding more curious than as a preferred method.

"Probably because we can't be sure it's safe to drink," Elmo answered.

"Exactly," Kim said. "So, jump in as you want and think about where the fire dragon is. Or, you could just wait to see if the rest of us will merely have to dry off."

"Sounds reasonable," Jonas remarked, though Kim couldn't be sure if he was serious or trying to mock her.

Taking a deep breath, Kim decided that she had to be tired if she couldn't figure that out.

Then, turning to face the pond, she took a deep breath and jumped in, not caring if the others would be following her right after. She pictured in her mind of the fire dragon, or what she imagined it would look like as she entered the water.

She wasn't sure what to expect, but what happened was that her entire world went black. She was hit with a wave of fatigue in the darkness and felt herself going under, even as a light started appearing in front of her in the distance.