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[McDodgerman]

Oh? He didn't want to push the fairy too hard... "If she's saying 'while I still can,' then we should probably take a break." He blew out his hands, rubbed them together. Just a little numb, but that's alright. He reached into his coat and extracted a maroon-tinted vial, giving it one twirl on his finger. "And, I prefer homebrew. I keep a few extra, if you'd like a sample?" He uncorked it with his thumbnail, kicking back the whole in a smooth raspberry gulp. He didn't expect to use any magic as exhausting as white fire, so he wanted to tank up whatever excess he had lost. He rather liked the gelatinous feeling down his throat, anyways, and the combined warmth and fresh spearmint aftertaste was a personal favorite of his.

He could feel that familiar sense of heightened awareness as his mana flowed back. He had always attributed the "caffeine rush" to drinking more potent elixirs than necessary, maybe some extra mana spilling over into his nervous system or something; but he could feel it again now... He really needed to experiment with that white fire...

He placed the empty vial back into its clip, took out two more with a two-fingered flip. He tossed one to each of other mages, not worried about the glasses' integrity if they dropped. This project was turning out to be a bigger drain than expected, but they were taking it at breakneck speeds compared to what he had envisioned. They may not need a break time-wise, but he didn't know how far the others could stretch. The Mermen seemed to overcome their comedic differences and start working at the surface-walkers' pace, but they had only just started.

[Alison]

The merfolk were doing their job well enough so Cassie was not concerned. Well she was a little concerned for the merperson slamming their fist into the pieces. Wouldn't that hurt? When she heard Nico she gave a little exhale. A break right now would be good. It seemed that Drew was wanting a break, thank goodness.

As the man blew his fire out and spoke to Nico, Cassie landed to the ground.

"I'm starting to get tired," she responded to the ice mage. "A break is a really good idea."

The woman hadn't spoken to her directly about the mana potions. So she felt no need to butt in. From her landing and small stretch she hoped that would be an indicator that a rest was welcome. It wasn't until she was thrown a vial did Cassie really take notice. She caught it in her hands and looked at it.

"Thanks," she nodded. "Homebrew? You made this yourself?"

[abadlex]

Noticing the sudden drop of temperature, the merpeople looked up from what they were doing to see that the fire had been blown out and that the three standing on the ice were taking a break. Without the fire to melt the ice, the merpeople finished up with the pieces they were moving already and started to merely tread water as they waited. There was no point in leaving the cold waters if they were just going to go back in. Besides outside of the water was cold as well, colder when one is dripping wet.

Mara finished up with smashing the smaller pieces and moved closer to the rest of the merfolk group.

"So much for magic..." Kaser said with a smirk. "Only a few pieces were melted by that little flame of yours"

"Kaser" the elder said flatly.

"Oh come on" Kaser said with a roll of his eyes. "With magic, this job should have been-"

"He was already melting the ice before we got here" Tirau interrupted. "And correct if I'm wrong, but I believe magic is very draining..."

"Pfft... Lame excuse" Kaser countered.

"KASER!!" the elder shouted.

"Don't brother" Tirau said. "If this jackass can't accept these breaks, he will just have to leave"

"The only jackass here is you" Kaser said, glaring at Tirau.

"Oh. I'm a jackass, huh?" Tirau said. "I'll admit I can be cold most of... Well ok, all the time. But nothing like you"

Kaser glared draggers at Tirau, gritting his teeth.

[McDodgerman]

"Homebrew indeed, Cassie~ I've started a little sort of business over in Castlevania, sanctioned by Lord Alucard himself!" Oh, there was a nicely tired tagline. Now that he had the chance to advertise in person, he fumbled over the words he had so carefully rehearsed. mm...-?

He got distracted by some rabble in the pond, cocking an eyebrow at Kaser's insolence. He was going to wave him off as ignorant, but the other mermen seemed particularly hot-blooded for ice water. It seemed more confusing of a paradox than to even try disarming, but he compelled himself against his better judgment.

"I'm not the best magician in Castlevania, no more than a rookie really. I thought I should help wherever my talents could allow, but my expertise focuses around potionery. I might've made a firebomb, even, if I thought you'd disregard the broken glass in your pool; but I don't think I have one prepared at the moment, my apologies. In any case, I'm ready and raring to go again now."

He was very conscious of his enthusiasm, even more over-the-top than usual. He wondered if the trial-sized potions would have the same effect on the others, seeing how most customers simply bought what they needed and left. Truth be told, he only had his own experience for a guinea pig, and his mother's guidance for a professional opinion. Not that he minded, for the future of the business, but part of him worried about cross-contamination or other such medical concerns. He had a few bad experiences with mixing drinks before...

[Alison]

Cassie smiled as Drew responded. The babbling from the mermen in the lake making her roll her eyes. As the man continued she started to chuckle. The guy was enthusiatic about his talents for a rookie. But he seemed to have the gumption to become a potion master one day. She hadn't recalled seeing him in the Alchemy Lab. Well it wasn't like she spent all her time in there either. So it was possible he could have made it in there.

"Well it looks like your potion worked on you," she stated as he finished. "You seem to have some skill. Not just with your fire magic. I wonder if a firebomb would be overkill if you had one. At least with those guys in the surface."

Looking over the vial she walked towards him to give it back to him. The colour was interesting. Though it was likely for the best that she wouldn't be testing it. While it had been fine on Drew, she didn't know how she would react.

"I would have used a potion to boost my mana," she informed him. "If I'd have been using magic."

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Nico made a small sound of annoyance, unhappy that she'd been shown up by Drew's apparently home made potions.

Stupid little show off and his homebrew alchemy, she thought irritably, even watching the exchange between Drew and Cassie a bit jealously. If there was anything Nico didn't take well to, it was being left out.

She was, however, distracted by the mermen, and an argument arising about a particularly snarky one. Loving this sort of stuff, Nico's mood was somewhat soothed as she listened in, pleased that at least one other person there wasn't thrilled with Drew.

Drew had a come back, of course. Nico shrugged and waited for the mage to get on with the fire making, glad when Cassie pointed out she hadn't even been using magic.

[McDodgerman]

"No magic?" Drew was taken aback, but already he could feel it like a slingshot effect. The drive to do more, more efficiently! No more one-shot heat waves, just easy cruising from here on! If Cassie didn't use magic, then he had to match by using as little energy as possible, as efficiently as possible. Certainly not a big effort, but he had let himself be goaded into a huge waste over a friendly prodding.

This wasn't the first time it had happened, really. He should've learned already, but he was very aware of his irrationality around others. Some of this enthusiasm he attributed to the potion, but the rest to just being a socialite. His mother always said he made for great advertisement when out and about, and a dedicated apothecary in the workshop. One time when company and work mingled, entire batches were ill-formed and ruined... Fun for the moment of course, but clean-up was a pain...

"So if you haven't been using magic, how've you been working those air currents?" He looked up at Cassie with genuine curiosity as he lit his hand up again, bent towards the nearest ice floe. While he'd like to start from the center of these chunks and work inside-out, there was no feasible way to do so...

[Alison]

Cassie gave a small smile as the Drew was taken aback. Maybe she had overestimated the Demon's scope. She would have to see what else, if anything else, this Demon was caperble of doing. There was a slight glimmer in the Fae's eyes as Drew spoke again. Did he really not get how she had been doing it?

The smile turned into a grin as Drew restarted his work. Oh now this could be fun. This could be the pefect tease, had he not answered a few questions for her earlier. Stretching her wings Cassie took to the air once more.

"These things," she finally chuckled thumbing to her wings answering his questions. "Using energy to keep myself airborn and the currents at a level that will not cause discomfort to those in the lake, is almost as tiring as using a lot of mana."

Looking back out onto the lake. There were still several larger chunks of ice gathered around. Frowning a little, Cassie knew they would have to be broken down to try and melt them. That meant asking Nico for assistance. But first, the merfolk may need to be warned that things were about to heat up again, literally.

"Hey guys," she called out onto the lake. "We're about to start up again so becareful!"

With the warning given she turned her attention to the Ice Mage. Without her this would have been a royal pain in the butt. But they did still need her help to achieve success.

"Nico," she called to the ice mage. "Do you think you could break down the large chunks to the left of the lake for us please?"

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Nico squinted out over the length of the lake after Cassie requested that she break up some ice floating loosely on the portion to their left. They weren't the only chunks still floating around, but they certainly weren't as numerous as they'd been before. The combined efforts of Drew and the mermen had seen to that. It did leave Nico a little confused though. The mermen had been doing a fine job thus far moving all the other ice chunks in line of Drew's fire magic. Couldn't they just keep at it and get the job done that way?

Snorting, Nico shook her head. She was being lazy and she knew it. Although she did feel it kind of silly for her to have to do something about the ice floes (damn those mermen and their stringy, weak arms!) she decided she'd to it anyway, if just to humor the fae.

Focusing on her magical energies, Nico put her hands together and closed her eyes. A few moments later, her feet touched off from the ground, and opening her eyes, she began to glide in the air toward the section of the lake that had been indicated. When she reached the area she hovered over the surface, crystalline snowflake like vapors drifting down from her feet where she bobbed in the air.

She put a hand to her chin and rubbed at her skin while she contemplated how to go at the ice. She wanted to look good while she did it, of course, and while the giant ice shard had been a crowd pleaser, she didn't think that was going to work again. Although the chunks of ice were a bit large, they floated loosely in the frigid water, not anchored to anything. If she tried to drop anything on them, there was a chance that the ice would sink and resurface a ways away, or simply slide out from beneath the projectile, unharmed.

Positioning herself over one of the chunks, Nico put her hands together once more, and focused her energy on the center of the ice. A faint, blue light began to shine from the center of the floe. The light began as an translucent line which twisted and convulsed into a ghostly object that looked like a mace, with long, thin spikes protruding from any side. Focusing her energy more directly, the light began to solidify into an icy crystal, hardening from the inside of the chunk. The chunk began to crackle, and as the spikes of the crystal began to grow, the chunk began to crack, splitting tendrals snaking out from the center of the chunk until they reached the edges, and with a thunderous crunch, broke apart into nine smaller pieces.

Mission accomplished (at least for one of the three chunks), Nico hovered off to the next chunk, where she hovered a moment while she drank from one of her mana potions. Creating the ice crystals within the ice chunks weren't particularly hard, but making them grow required energy, and hovering around like this wasn't easy either. She was truly taxing her abilities that day, but it would be worth it when they got the job done.

[abadlex]

As the fire was started again and the ice was hit for another heated assasult, the merfolk began to work with smaller and easier to move chunks again, moving the further away chunks closer. Although there was the matter of the larger ice chunks... And will the ice melt as fast as they were bringing them.

Tirau shrugged off that last thought, Drew could just turn up the heat on that fire of his... Maybe, the merman didn't know much about magic as he could not use it himself. Time will tell if the heat can be increased or not.

But then Cassie gave them a warning to be careful. "Be careful? Of what..."

His thought trailed off as the fae called out to the ice mage, asking for more ice smashing. Maybe he should...

"Yo. She's the one who broke the ice the first time" Tirau alerted the other merfolk, pointing out the ice mage as he did so. "Might wanna watch out..."

Seeing the ice mage at one of the larger chunks and formulating a plan to smash it, the merfolk moved a bit further away from her. It turned out for nothing as they just watched her slowly break the ice from the inside into nine pieces with a really loud crunch. As she moved on to the next one, the merfolk resumed work, keeping a good distance from Nico just in case.

"That a pretty skillful way of breaking something..." Tirau silently admitted in his mind as he resumed work.

[Alison]

As Nico started her work, Cassie couldn't help but chuckle a little. Magic flight in motion what a nice little sight to see in addition to the ice mage using her magic. Sometimes Nico never ceased to amaze Cassie. The woman was making her work look so very easy. Though it was a little scary watching the ice crack with such skill and noise.

As Cassie watched the woman drink a mana potion, she felt a little guilty of asking the woman to do what she had. They likely could have done more without Nico's help. They had been a little lazy.

The merfolk were at least being smart enough to get out of the way while Nico had been doing her work. With a slight stretch she watched as they then started to work again.

"Nice work Nico," she called to the woman before turning her attention back to Drew. Her wings beating a little faster. "Lets get this finished!".

[McDodgerman]

Her wings? To be honest, he had always thought of them as merely biological, not magical. Would that make winged demons more magically endowed as well? Though Cassie's explanation made sense, it was an obtuse angle from his usual perspective. Never really had the gut to ask any of the fae around Castlevania, or the mind to even think about it. Now that he had asked, he had even more questions than before, each answer only seeming to branch new questions.

He'd have to ask about that later. The break had been idle enough already, and it seemed like Ni-

Okay, she didn't have wings.

Just watching her glide over the ice made him infinitely more aware of how much knowledge he had missed out on. Even if his father had never demonstrated the same feat, Drew felt that he could've learned how if he had paid enough attention. The studies never interested him, they were a filial obligation and little more, and only now finding an ember of potential...

Nico imploded the ice with a mighty crash, then drifted off and sucked down a potion as casually as could be. It was quite an accomplishment for her to shrug off like that. Maybe just watching her would help him improve, even if a different sphere of magic. Nico was too good to merely ask, especially in the middle of a job, but there was some element of creativity that he couldn't achieve with his own magic. No, that was the wrong mindset, he could achieve it if he could cast it correctly. Still, it'd take a lot of learning and experimentation to reach that sort of power.

"Nice work Nico. Let's get this finished."

Right, still a job to do. He worked his hands up to a sparkling orange-yellow and held them up to Cassie's wings, as before. Well over halfway done and still in good time, by his mark.

[Alison]

Drew was getting back into his work. The warmth started to spread in her once again. Oh how nice it was, but what would be so much nicer would be sitting in front of a fire in the castle. Maybe with a cup of mulled wine as a treat as well. But before that could happen, there was work to finish off.

It seemed that their combo was once again working on the ice. But Cassie was getting a little bored and one of her favourite past times was teasing people, in a friendly way. Tiaru was still hard at work so he was out, Nico hadn't done anything worth teasting about. Well really neither had Drew, but he was going to be the one to be teased.

"Is that really the best you can do," she teasted the Demon, beating her wings a little faster. "See I can up my game, so what about you Drew? Think we can get this done a little quicker?"

The Fae wore a little smirk on her face as she spoke. Would it be enough to tease him into it?

[abadlex]

Finished with the placement of the latest ice piece he was pushing, Tirau took moment to glance over what remained.

"Let's see..." the merman thought to himself as he tried to judge the work left. "Are we... Over halfway?"

Hoping the rest of the work would be swift and that he'll be heading back to the castle soon, Tirau went back to work... But just as he was, a bit of Cassie's conversation with Drew reached his ears.

"Is she challenging him?" Tirau thought to himself as he made his way to another ice piece, amused by what he thought he heard. "This might be interesting... Shame I have to keep up the pace here"

He began to push an ice piece towards the heat source, wondering if he would be able to hear some more and possibly confirm what he thought he heard.

[McDodgerman]

"A little faster?.." He couldn't tell if the tease was part of her playful nature or an honest challenge; but after such good results last time, he wanted to do better... After all, he was still fresh off a potion, why not push? Goading or not, this was a chance to improve himself, test his limits.

He caught his inner fire again, noting that it came easier to him after last time. It would only get better the more he practiced, and he wanted to practice hard while he could. He could feel the flow of energy coursing through his fingers, a fine ridge of fire faintly visible across his knuckles, feeding into the fire in his hands. A slow push and nothing more, though he could feel the frost melting from around his boots. A part of him questioned pushing this far, and he held off from making a hot tub for now.

It was easy to see this halfway-done job would be done quite soon at this pace, and he was proud that he could contribute even as a rookie magician. "Fast enough for you, Cass?" He chuckled and made lazy shapes with the tongue of flame.