Chapter 1360 Chapter 1360 Bird Watching Romilda
--- Lily ---
The moment stretched out as adrenaline roared through Lily's system. Then one second became ten, and ten became twenty. Lily started to calm a bit. Then a full minute had passed and no sign of Romilda. Lily wanted to lean out and check what was going on but she had no practice at all with this form and doing anything too stupid would make her look extremely suspicious. Avoiding that suspicion was the entire point of this… but Lily still had a problem.
Namely, how to figure out what Romilda was doing. The dwarf was still quite some distance away when Lily had chosen to backtrack and hide in the trees. It was entirely possible that after spotting one of the giant crabs Romilda had backed off, or, that she was taking this incredibly carefully as she entered into the kelp grove, looking for treasure.
Lily just had no way of knowing, and in her panic she'd locked herself into a form she couldn't move in properly, with no good way to keep an eye on Romilda for a potentially significant amount of time. Sure Lily had considered that this could take a while, but she hadn't anticipated the issue of not knowing if the time was being wasted or not. With a view of Romilda it would've been easy to drop the bird form and get back to searching for treasure…
But as it stood? Lily was now stuck in a tree with no idea what was going on. She was forced to gamble with time. Every minute she waited it got more likely Romilda would appear… until suddenly that chance dropped off a cliff, when it then became more likely that Romilda had passed up going into the crab area at all. Which was a problem because Lily didn't know where that line WAS or how to find it without finding a way to look for Romilda.
*Well. This is a bit of a mess. I thought I was being so clever. I thought that it was an easy choice to lose ten or twenty minutes to avoid losing thirty minutes and all of my treasures… but no now I'm going to lose a totally unknown amount of time with Romilda completely out of sight. I should've accepted the risk of being spotted and transformed on the other side of the trunk.
Sure it was much more likely to get me caught, but much more likely then 'nearly impossible' still seems like a good deal considering how much information it would've given me. I don't even have the confidence to hop to the nearby branches to give me more information because I'm liable to fall down onto the sand, and sure a weird bird in a tree underwater is a bit strange, but a weird bird on the sandy ground is SURE to get me attacked, just to see if it's something that's been specifically left out by Thyme.*
Lily looked around for a solution for another few minutes but obviously didn't find anything. Without practicing how to move, she was pretty much stuck where she was, and Lily had no intentions of giving away her cover while practicing. So there she was, sitting in a tree just waiting for something to happen.
*So… what do I spend my time on while I wait? Perhaps try to meditate and pull in some extra mana? Would that be noticeable to Romilda though? I'm going to have to assume that it IS a thing you can notice so perhaps scratch that idea off the list. Hmmm… what else can I do? No spell testing because one, no mana, and two, Romilda, again.
I could try to think of uses for all the treasures I've got on me? They all seem pretty simple though… except maybe the lightning rod but once again. I didn't exactly test that. The bracelets have proven their worth against the fire, but it's not really an ACTIVE use. Same with the defensive amulet.
I suppose I could use the transformation ring to quickly swap forms and dodge attacks… but frankly I can do that better naturally and without the uncomfortable feeling that comes with being a bird.
Though there's a question. Am I uncomfortable because this hasn't really been messed with yet or am I specifically uncomfortable to be a bird, something that most cats hunt. Especially smaller birds like the one I seem to be. Yeah let's consider this. It seems like an interesting line of thought to pass the time.
What else could be the problem? Hmm… perhaps I'm moving down the food chain? Like my humanoid form and Memphis ones might be on the same 'level' or at least not too far apart from each other. Do… hmm… do any beastkin I know of turn into like mice or something? No wait Major has that rabbit girl she likes, so it's probably not that. Unless they're a special kind of rabbit. Could be a hare…
But nah, it's probably just that this form isn't my natural one. Though I suppose it could be that it's a step down from my Memphis form specifically. Like, if I got a ring that turned me into say… a dragon that would be fine? Really not sure how to test something like that without finding more rings to try out…*
Lily continued to investigate that train of thought, mostly just poking around at it and turning over ideas that she didn't really have an answer to, or any way to test. It made for a good way to pass the time. She didn't even notice after the ten-minute mark, or the fifteen… but her patience paid off. Just before the twenty-minute mark, Lily saw Romilda sneak passed the tree.
Lily almost missed it because she was too lost in thought but Romilda passed through the line of trees one further down then the line Lily had chosen. Which was probably a good thing because now Lily was paying attention again there were rather obvious tracks in the sand from her passing if you knew what to look for.
Lily watched Romilda as she carefully looked around the area, keeping a clear watch on something in the distance, probably a crab Lily couldn't see from this angle. Romilda's gaze did cross Lily's a few times, but the dwarf didn't seem to think Lily's current appearance was anything strange and simply kept on moving.
Lily gave it another few minutes before breaking the transformation by turning into a Memphis, unsure how to turn of the ring 'properly' and thankful that her first time doing that didn't break anything. Lily then started to head away from Romilda diagonally, careful to keep a few bits of scenery between her and where Romilda was assumed to be for a bit of added safety.
Lily even passed underneath a crab on the way out. It didn't bother her, and she didn't bother it. The crab had no issues with her swimming along the ground. It did give her a look as her tail brushed the kelp once she was passed it, but Lily wasn't looking back at it to notice the gaze, and the crab wasn't annoyed enough by her disrespect of its craft to actually do anything. Assuming it was capable of feeling annoyed. It might have just been instinct for the lesser ones.
When Lily finally got the edge of the kelp forest she looked over at the coral one with a slight frown on her face. *What do I want to do here? Romilda obviously came from that direction so it might not be worth checking for chests… but Thyme also said that more of them open up as the treasure hunt goes on. If that's the case then perhaps I can find ones that are newly spawned?
Of course there is also the chance that Romilda just wasn't looking properly but I don't want to count on that. Better to assume competence from your enemies and be pleasantly surprised. Which brings me back around to the main question. Is it worth exploring an area that I know for a fact has already been explored with the assumption that only new chests will be available.*
Lily chewed on the idea for a few moments but nothing obvious stood out. On the one hand, knowing somebody else had been there first was obviously a bad thing, and made skipping the coral forest a good idea… but on the other hand the coral forest seemed quite large and where Lily had come out of the kelp forest meant she didn't actually have any other obvious landmarks to investigate. She would need to head either head into the coral forest, or run along the boarder until she found something else…
Which probably meant it would be best to either enter into the coral forest a bit, or stick more to the kelp side and look for treasure there. Unless of course Thyme put some chests in the middle of the two biomes, but Lily didn't think in likely. It wasn't properly 'thematic' enough for Thyme.
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