Winnia's footsteps halted. "BRIGHT! NO!"
Thankfully, there was a coherent response. "ACK!!! AH, oww…! I'm fine! Just had to… Heat up my landing site to cushion the fall!"
"Okay…? So, are you gonna stop doing that?"

"Doing what? Heating up the space I'm gonna land on? Did the flash from that get in your eyes or-?"

"No, you idiot! Being an idiot!"

"Hah! Winn, you should know that I wouldn't take risks if they'd actually turn out bad!"

"Yeah yeah. Let me pull you out..."

Salixio paused the player and turned to his partner, finding just the right moment to tease. "Wow Avgi, this Bright guy sure sounds a lot like you!"

"He doesn't. At all. I'm not that reckless…" Avgi's golden eyes rolled, the beams of light that illuminate the tunnel rolling with them. "Let's lower down to get across."

Catching onto the idea, Salixio grew another ten tough vines from his right arm, and had Avgi grip them in his hands to allow Salixio to scale down the pitfall safely.

Once he hit the bottom, the tough vines slipped out of Avgi's hands and wrapped around each other. They all formed a spiraling vertical pole from the ceiling to the ground, before detaching from Salixio's arms to spread out a ten-pronged base for stability. Avgi grabbed onto the pole once it was done, sliding down with ease.

They carefully waded through the broken chunks of ground to reach the other side of the pitfall. Salixio looked up, then shook his head. "I brought us down. How do you want to bring us back up?"

Avgi stared up with a thumb on his chin, pondering. "Ah, we have a bunch of ways to do that. I could carry you and make a big jump, elevate the dirt with my Rock Magic, make a ladder…"

The pale green face of Salixio turned a slightly deeper green, flushed out and flustered as he looked away nervously. "I’m sorry, carry me?"

Avgi mostly belted out that possibility at random, but Salixio's reaction gave him the idea to be sly, looking back down with a persuasive smirk. "Yeah, you wanna do that?"

Salixio held a reserved and gentle posture at all times, but at that point he was more shy than ever, blushing and facing the ground, his moppy willow hair draping over his head and face entirely. "I- uh… Yes. That sounds nice…"

"Alright, here we go!" Avgi, in one sweeping motion, scooped up the body of another Elemental in his arms like it was nothing. Salixio's clothes felt awfully soft, woven with luxurious fibers truly fit for a prince.

Having Salixio in his arms felt intimate. For how much we've been teasing around, he's pretty cute. Wonder what he thinks about all this… Looking at Salixio's face made him turn it away with a stubborn pout, so Avgi chose not to dwell.

His legs bent down to a full squat, before the two sprang up through the air in hardly a second. Avgi's shoes landed softly and sturdily against the ground of the hallway, as Salixio's legs were dropped and he also landed upright. As he did, the recording continued. Or, it did after a strange segment, the sound quickly speeding up before returning to normal, as the duo walked up to a sharp right turn in the hall.

"Okay Winn, we've hit a right bend. Let's see what's on the other side."

Avgi and Salixio nodded to each other, deciding to replicate what they assumed to be getting close to the wall, and peeking around the corner. As Avgi was about to lean around, the sound of a large object swooping through the air came from the player. Avgi stopped, having known that sound all too well, as it seemed like Bright quickly threw himself away from the trap.

"THEY WERE EXPECTING ME TO BE CAREFUL!?"

"Maybe you should think more about these things. Someone made these traps with a purpose in mind, you know…"

"Is there a purpose in mind for you being so smug?"

"Maybe, maybe not. What do you think?"

"Whatever. Let's go wide."

Salixio paused it again, as Avgi pressed his uninjured left hand against the wall. It was his best guess for the place one would have put their hand to support themself, whilst peeking around the corner. Sure enough, the brick pushed in, and a huge wooden log fell down from the perpendicular wall, pounding the air and the heads of any theoretical person who had stuck out their neck too far. When it hit the ground, it shook off wood dust all around it, and thundered with noise. “Oh, wow…”

The player unpaused. It sounded like Bright had stepped over the dormant log, and found no issues.

“Now looking past the turn, we’re seeing a lot of thorny vines. And by thorny, I mean they look like RAZORS!”

“Why don’t you just charge through ‘em? That’s worked the last few times, hasn’t it?”

“Winn, look. What am I emitting, constantly, as we speak?”

“... Light?”

“Yeah. Now watch this.”

“You know, she sounds a lot like you!” Avgi stepped over the log, knowing just what to do. Bright didn’t need to finish speaking. The right hand of the hero pointed towards the thorn vines, which knotted over each other and consumed the entire stretch of hallway in an untraversable brush. The residual light that Avgi emitted began to disappear, or more accurately, condense.

As it did, the glow of Avgi’s body shone brighter, causing Salixio to cover his face. “Huh? Winnia sounds like she was simply rude. I don’t do that…”

Avgi turned his head and raised an eyebrow. “Or do you?” The light behind him vanished, then narrowed from his sides, then from the periphery of his front side, until there was only one beam shooting through the thorns. That laser blasting from his hand was dense; hot enough to cut through the trap like butter.

Salixio’s arm dropped away from his confused face. “Wha… Oh, now you’re messing with me. Very well, let us be even.”

Nodding affirmatively and turning his head back, Avgi’s arm waved around, shredding apart the dangerous path and leaving it a searing pile of ash, safe to walk through. Before he did, though, Salixio continued the recording. Sure enough, it repeated the searing noise.

“See?”

“Yep. Good work-”

“Now that it’s out of the way, let’s go!”

“Huh? Hang o-”

The recorded sprint began, once more.

“Treasure’s gotta be waiting at the end of this, remember!?”

“Yeah, and it can wait a MINUTE longer!”

“Just a minute!? Then we gotta step it up even faster!”

“YOU KNOW THAT’S NOT WHAT I-!”

Rather than follow that lead, Avgi and Salixio took their time wading through the ashen piles. Some fair distance beyond the thorn trap, the ground seemed to give in again, only it seemed like the bottom was even lower than what was safe. Several stone pegs, wide enough to support a foot or hand, stuck out from the abyss below. It sounded like Bright flipped through the air and deftly crossed the pillars.

“JUST MY THING, PARKOUR! This is too eas-” Scrape. “-YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

Winnia’s feet crashed across the pegs in a panic, before vines lashed out. “NOT THIS TIME! GRAB ON!”

“HEY, I CAUGHT THE PILLAR! CLIMBING BACK UP NOW!”

"YOU LITTLE WEED! DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!"

Looking from the edge of the ground, the pegs were far apart. One would need a supernatural running start and dextrous landings to get across, if they weren't to use Chloro Magic. However, Magic was the first thing Salixio tried. He paused the player, handing it to Avgi.

In his hand was a seed he had formed. The moment it hit the floor after a drop, a huge log burst upwards and diagonally from the seed, smooth and round at either end. It specifically hit the ground with its near end; if it grew completely horizontally, the seed’s landing spot would have been the centerpoint of the log, meaning it wouldn’t have been long enough.

With the ground as resistance for one end, the limited length was able to stretch across the desired distance. Salixio had aimed its initial growth so that the end of the round bridge would be over the first peg.

It fell slightly off-target and flipped into the abyss. Avgi started to count with his fingers, as Salixio stared on in horror.

"One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seve-" CRASH! It was a long way down, and they didn't hear the landing as loudly as what would've been comforting. "Yeesh… Better make it a square one."

Salixio crossed his arms, correcting Avgi. "Squares are two-dimensional. I can make it a block, you mean."

His eyes rolled at the statement. "Yes yes, you remember math class. I get it. So, what’s the margin of error for the angle of the bridge to actually land stable?”

Salixio actually knelt down, trying to get a better read on where he was in relation to the peg. “It’d be hard to give you an exact number. This next one might work better, though.”

He held a second seed in his fingers, whilst pointing his left hand forwards at the peg. As Salixio’s right hand let go, and it hit the ground, what burst from it was a log with four flat sides, the far end falling and hitting the peg’s surface accurately. “Yep. There we go!”

Where Salixio smirked in satisfaction, Avgi shared in it only partially. He was more exasperated by what came next. “Nice one. Now we gotta do that… Nine more times.”

"We have plenty of time."

"Sadly..."