Chapter 461: The Wall

In the end, Stone did acquire a set of earmuffs for the pair that had been keyed to each other. This meant, apparently, that they wouldn't block out the sounds produced by whoever was wearing the partner set. They were warned that this did mean excessive noise generated by one of the two would still be a problem of the other.

"So, you don't NEED to put these on but I've got them now and even managed to find a paired set. This should work the best for your job because it'd be bad if you couldn't communicate with each other during combat." Explained Stone.

"Thanks!" said Kamiko cheerily putting them around her arm for the time being while Kat set hers around her sash for a second before immediately hitting them with her arm. *Seems Kamiko had the better idea here. I thought the gap would be a bit wide for keeping on our arms but seems to hold mostly strong. Not sure HOW considering how slippery our skin can be when it wants.* 

As they started to head into the mine stone said. "One last thing. Don't run here. It's considered common curtesy to walk in the mines to prevent things getting too loud, or just hard to dodge. Some people who work here are FAST but their reaction times are horrible, so neither them nor the person they run into can dodge. Might take as a while, but it is what is it"

With that, Stone headed off without waiting for a response. Kat and Kamiko followed easily behind him, though, when he said 'walk' clearly power walking was included in that definition because Kat found herself basically jogging to keep up. A small part of her mind argued that because demons were so much faster, they were much slower than a run could potentially be, but she ignored that.

The mine was mostly what she'd expected. A lot of stone walls, no minecart tracks because they float, but a lot of footprints in the dirt. A few turns here and there, mostly when they ran into a particularly strange looking ore that sucked in light. Some other interesting coloured ores in small quantities that lined the walls, apparently not worth digging out for some reason.

The sound though. That wasn't fun. It only took about a minute before Kat threw on her earmuffs, she didn't even notice them shifting around her horns when she did so. Her mind normally filtered sound in such a way that it didn't overlap too badly. She could tell what came from where to a certain extent, especially when everything else was quiet. The mine though, it just took the sound and mixed it all together into a rather annoying background drone that was just loud enough Kat found it impossible to ignore.

This led her to slipping on her earmuffs and asking what the one ore that never seemed to be dug into was. Stone grinned back at her when she asked and tapped the side of his head. Kat was not happy it took her thirty seconds to realise the issue was that she'd just put on earmuffs and he couldn't tell her anymore.

When Kamiko saw Kat putting the headgear on, she did as well. Her thoughts were closer to trying to tough out the experience with Kat, so seeing Kat capitulate it was an easy decision. Kat's ears were actually a bit better then Kamiko's but the smaller demon was much less use to pain and general annoyance, meaning the effect was more pronounced to Kamiko's mind.

Eventually, after about an hour and a half of walking through tunnels, albeit well lit ones, Stone held up a hand and slowly reduced his speed. Kat didn't see anything strange about this part of the tunnels, and was looking around for any changes but wasn't seeing anything.

Stone took another few steps, bleeding speed each time his feet made contact with the Eart until he'd practically slowed to a crawl, but it took a few more steps for him to stop completely. Kat could see another corner coming up soon, and wondered if that was where the rats were.

Stone tapped the side of his head and Kat took it to mean they should remove the earmuffs temporarily. The sound returned in full force and Kat winced, but she could deal with it for a bit. Kamiko was the same, though her face had gained a frown during the removal. "Ok" said Stone softly "Right around this corner, we'll find some packed dirt. I used my ability to mould stone to put it there and stop the rats from coming any further. I don't know what you'll find.

"What I'm going to do, is make a small door in the wall, about half your height so you'll need to crouch, and then send you both through quickly. The rats might be around, might not, but you'll head through and I'll wait to make sure none of the rats sneak past.

"Once you're in, I'll plug the hole in the while, but only with my weakest dirt. It's not a supporting so if you must leave, you can smash your way through. I'll be coming to get your personally at the end of the day though. Is that fine?"

Kat noticed the distinct change in address, he wasn't asking if they understood, but if they were willing to go along. *And honestly I have mixed feelings about that. It sounds safe enough from this side of things, but I'm not sure I want to bash down a wall if I'm running for my life or something. I can easily survive a few rat bites, but if I really need to retreat we have big problems. 

Kamiko might be a better judge of when to leave, but that still leaves us with issues. The whole reason for the wall is not to let the swarm rats through. If we have to leave for whatever reason I don't like the idea of leaving this open to the rest of the mine…*

"Is there a reason you don't create a makeshift door instead of just filling the wall back up?" asked Kat ignoring the background droning and the urge to put the earmuffs on again.

Stone ground his lips together, "You make a valid point. The main issue is that if they can sense air through the door the swarm rats will… well… swarm. They might not be smart, but they have some good instincts, and finding fresh air is one of them. I just can't magic up a door that's good enough to prevent that. A door isn't outside my capabilities, but I think it raises the risk level a good deal for you both if I went that way.

"The one deficit of Swarm Rats that makes them such a non issue is… they don't really have a good pack survival instinct. What I mean is… they don't care if a rat dies, because they 'know' there's always more rats. They'll attack if they see you, and maybe some of the really nearby ones that hear you, but the whole swarm wouldn't come down on you like they potentially might for fresh air" Stone explained.

*Urgh, that makes an annoying amount of sense. Now I'm not exactly sure how I want to go about this. It makes retreat look like such a non option doesn't it? Hmm, I guess if it really comes to that, we can bust through the wall and then freeze rat corpses to block it. They'll dig, but we'd have time to defend. Very gross, but perhaps the only option? Should I mention it? We were told to stay partnered up, so I couldn't even send Kamiko back to mention the problem. Heck I might need her help just to defend anyway.* 

Kat looked over to Kamiko for advice but she just shrugged and said, "I don't know Kat. This is delicate stuff. Despite the miners being known for grunt work, sometimes tricky situations come up or so I've been told" Kamiko nodded towards Stone at the end who nodded and continued.

"Yup, she's right. That's what the Team Leaders and myself are for. Fixing stuff they can't. It's why I had to personally seal this wall up. Had to do it properly, not take too much stone from the surroundings, make sure it was a full seal but no load bearing and easy to knock down. More complicated then it all looks I assure you."

Kat sighed mentally. *Of course it couldn't be easy. Dammit. Well, I guess I'll just have to make sure that we aren't forced to retreat then.* "I guess that's fine then. I have no more questions" said Kat

Kamiko nodded as well, then the pair slipped their earmuffs on. Stone walked carefully up to the wall, and placed his hands on it before looking back at them both signalling he was about to bust it down.