While scared to hell of what was to come Mibbet had hardly ever been as worked up as she was right now, at last the blessing was about to prove its worth. This was going to take so many jumps. She looked around her, doing her best to figure out the angle of the jumps.

Rosalind may have her beat on finance, international politics, economics, and maths. But this was JUMPING, here she could excel. She timed her first jump, bounding off a wall, and practically ricocheting to the next as where her feet had just been mere seconds before crystals formed.

Frogs are however very good at jumping quietly, if for no other reason than the ones who aren’t skilled in that particular field are lunch. So with every bound she landed as delicately as she possibly could before kicking off once again. (In all fairness suddenly having a human sized chassis meant she was a tad louder than she had been previously. But it wasn’t as huge a difference as it would have been for a regular human. With every jump she threw a bottle, hitting the bizarre crystalline creature in selected spots, she just hoped she had enough.

The Eccos meanwhile, (at least the ones who couldn’t run like hell earlier) seemed to be doing their level best to maintain containment, and with the sleeping draught it genuinely seemed to be working, at least to an extent. It was genuinely slowing down, but would it be enough?

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The silencing charm on Trundles barely held on long enough for them to barrel out of the cave, then went to pieces faster than a student who just realised they were six months behind on their coursework and the deadline was tomorrow, (we all know this person, why do you do this every single year?)

Sir Leeroy dove clear obviously desperate to get back in there, he unsheathed his sword and dashed forward, only to be stopped by Elvira. (Hey if the danger of death wouldn’t hold him back maybe his sense of responsibility would.)

“Let me go,” he said his voice grim. “The Princess is in there with that thing, we have to save her.”

“Sir Leeroy, how long have you served my cousin?” Elvira asked.

“From the very day she was born,” he replied fondly. “If it wasn’t for the age cap I’d keep doing it till the day I die, even if I do joke about retirement a lot. Now LET ME GO, before she comes to harm.”

“You’re wound up and making noise, while Rosalind has a plan,” Elvira shot back coolly.

“How do you know she has a plan?”

“She’s Rosalind, when has she ever gone about getting into trouble without a plan?”

“You have a point” Sir Leeroy said with a chuckle, “that was always more her mothers domain.”

“No comment” Elvira replied, “now tell me, if my dear cousin has a successful potential plan brewing, and you stomp in there in your big stompy size twenties, making a racket and screw it up how do you think that is going to end for you?”

“Probably not well?”

“Understatement of the century, so here is what we do, we wait here ready for the signal, and when something inevitably explodes, implodes, sqwoomphs, unfolds reality, unleashes killer clowns, creates, or destroys a god, or saves a near extinct race we show up to pick up the pieces. Sound like a plan?”

Sir Leeroy merely nodded, “and what would the signal be?”

“Probably when something explodes, implodes, sqwoomphs, unfolds reality, unleashes killer clowns, or something else we aint listed. Rosalind’s creative like that, keeps us on our toes.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckled, “I’ve got twenty gold on her somehow making the gods damned thing a pet, she seems to do that with practically everything else.”

“No Bet” Elvira replied “that would be way too obvious.”

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Back in the Cave Mibbet was playing the scariest ever game, it was a cross between leapfrog, hopscotch, the floor is lave, and tig. Bit of course with It being permanently assigned the role, and you really really really did not want to get caught.

“SPAWN ROT IT” she thought to herself, barely making a clear jump of it before the crumbly bit of wall she had just departed decided it was through hanging around on the wall, and headed in a floor-ward direction with high speed. Stirring it back up again with an earth shattering crash. It took over five leaps for her to get clear, and they weren’t the quietest. But at least she managed to drop a bottle in the right place in passing.

The Eccos were doing their level best, and occasionally even helping Mibbet cheat, or she would have long been a frog kabob. Yes, she’d nailed it, another well placed bottle, and it wasn’t spreading any more. It had to be out for the count after all that hard work. So Mibbet landed as gently as she could and slowly tiptoed back along the passage.

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Errol meanwhile was absolutely bloody terrified, and he couldn’t even figure out why. The menacing feeling coming along the tunnel in his direction didn’t feel like the monster, if anything it felt scarier. Did they seal up some kind of greater demon in there as well? Suppressing a shudder he drew his weapon and stood ready. Slightly confused as to why Sir Leeroy was smiling, and even had his weapon sheathed.

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Mibbet was out, and approaching the source of this evenings chaos with a full on Rosalind Von Harmsworth trademark grin. (She had picked up a few things from Rosalind, one of those was the ability to smile in a manner liable to make grown men piddle themselves and run home to their mum. This was the type of smile she wore at the moment.

“Recruit Errol” she said so sweetly it probably would have a warning label in most countries.

“Yes Princess” he replied, hoping against hope weapons grade professionalism could save him here.

“I seem to recall telling you the danger was sound based, correct?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Mibbet then carefully polled him well out of earshot of the cave before her follow up question.

“Then may I ask WHY THE HELL YOU FELT THE NEED TO BLOW YOUR BLOODY NOSE AFTER THE SNEEZE?”

“Mum said it was polite” he mumbled.

“Oh alright then, just a memo, if you ever do something like that again I will promote you to captain of the guard in SmileTown, they really like the guard there, y’see they have this recipe they call pulled pork and................” The lecture continued for a while while Errol’s mind quickly put up the out to lunch sign and tried not to think.