"Yes," The antlered dragon confirms simply.

Cadenza examines the innate feeling of their magic at the question, though they are already answering. "Even it could, it barely changes the temperature the smallest amount. It would not make a significant difference."

The air around them chills, just barely, and they sigh. "It is something about the air, yes."

But they were thoughtful. "If there was water, I could freeze and unfreeze it, but I do not know that would help much either."

@Mossie

Mossie hums thoughtfully. She knows it takes work to unearth stone, but...blargh.

"Only a few degrees is tricky to work with," she admits, glancing back at the frustratingly firm ground. Why couldn't it do everyone a favor and just fucking break already?

"But we're in this together," she muses. "Perhaps our magic could work together...but how would we get water? I'm one with the fungus..."

Then her eyes fly open. A solution comes to her, entirely delightful in its simple cleverness, and she can't stop the purr that bubbles from her throat.

"Oh! I know, I know! Did you know that fungi are mostly made of water? And I can summon fungi! If the fungi burrowed into the stone and then you froze and heated the mycelia, that'd weaken the stone!"

She trots a circle around the approximate area of the altar, delighted to see the seemingly-aesthetic spell have a use. She focuses for a moment and tries once more to focus on concentrating her magic, trying to summon even more growths.

Mossie blinks. Nothing happens.

"Jungle rats," she hissed. "I dunno if this'll be enough to work with..."

@Cadenza

Nothing happens with Mossie's idea, but... "I do not know if it would work without a direct line of sight, but that gives me an idea of my own," Cadenza stated, with a hopefulness.

And then, the dragon just spat on the ground. It was a lot of saliva, but they were a dragon, after all. "Maybe if I freeze this and then melt it? But... I think I have to see what I am freezing and melting."

Instincts with magic were weird.

But, anyway. Time to try and freeze spit.

In the end, the spit freezes quite successfully over the indicated patch of ground.

@Mossie

She pouts. "Magic is Weird," she declares with a huff. Line of sight this, line of sight that...she wanted to freeze some mushroom string, damnit!


Mossie gasps, tail wagging. "Frozen spit, holy fucking bingle..." She does not think she'd be this excited over Frozen Spit. But its what the spit symbolically represents--purpose, power, ambition...and spit. Can't forget the spit.

She spits on the ground too, before narrowing her eyes in concentration. "With the ability to feel around, I'll be able to sense as the stone weakens, at least," she said.

@Cadenza

She can't sense much now, though. Must not be enough fun guys.

Cadenza nods solemnly. "Magic is weird," They declare in agreement.

They are glad that their improvised solution seems to be one Mossie likes. Now, to unfreeze the spit.

It mostly melts, but some small frozen pieces still are among the rest of the spit.

"How is the ground looking so far?" They wonder. "I can try to keep doing this, freezing and melting."

@Mossie

Mossie hums. "One day, I wanna figure out All The Magic Secrets." She's sure there's a ton.

Mossie watches in awe as the ice melts before their eyes. It doesn't melt all the way, but already she can see a crack forming in the ground. She stomps with her paws, trying to agitate the solidity of the earth, before spitting again.

"I'll try checking on the ground again!" She chirps.

Her eyes lit up. "It seems to be weakening!"

"Is that possible?" Cadenza wondered, vaguely awed at the idea of it. "...Magic is wonderful... But it can be dangerous, too." They considered this briefly.

Very briefly, for they are attempting to freeze the spit once again as quickly as they can. The quick shift between elements might serve to further weaken the ground, they think. Maybe.

So they focus.

And once again, the accumulated spit freezes solid. "It is really working!" Cadenza seems excited.

@Mossie

"Magic can be dangerous," she said with a shudder, recalling with a flattening of her ears how she'd tried to defend herself once and her neck started itching like she'd run afoul of a flea colony. "It's only happened to me once before, though, thank the caves."

"Fantastic! It really is working! We're really close!" She spat into some of the spreading cracks, then walked over it, trying to get fungi to root within and spread them.

And root they did. The fungi dipped into the cracks, and the spit pooled to the surface of the cracks, primed to cause optimum damage when they froze and melted once more.

@Cadenza

Failures in magic were dangerous, yes. But that had not been what Cadenza had been thinking of. Instead, the antlered dragon had been recalling Acheron's explanation of the destructive potential of their shared magic.

Cadenza went to focus on the melting of spit and suddenly yelped. Their teeth chattered together, and their head felt cold. They had no idea that they had given themself what humans might call 'brain-freeze'. All they knew was their head hurt in a weird way.

"G-Give me a mo- moment," Cadenza shivered.

Mossie's at their side in an instant, tailtip twitching in agitation. "Are you alright? Do you need anything? Hugs? Edible fungus? Hugs and edible fungus?"

Mossie is not the best at providing comfort, but she can give hugs. (And fungus.)

While she's there, she surreptitiously scans Orion's ground--she's curious if there's anything that's not conducive to digging there.

The feedback is inconclusive.