"Noooooo!" the Goblomancer said, falling to his knees. "My wellspring! My days of work!"

"Hey, you!" Elma yelled as the ground shook again. "What's going on here?! Why isn't it stopping?"

He scrambled onto his feet. "You ruined my project with your cursed magic!"

The outpouring of mana continued squirming without a care in the world.

"Yeah? So? Can you stop being evil and calm this thing down?"

"Evil? Me? No, you! You got in the way of progress! My theories could save the world!"

"How can you say the world is going to be saved when an earthquake is going off every other minute?"

"I told you! That's normal when you're accessing a leyline! It's in the literature!"

"Well, is this normal?!"

He looked at it and then looked at Elma like she was stupid. "Yes?"

Elma looked at it and then back at him. "No. That's clearly ominous!"

"The unknown is always scary to those who don't read! That's just what the mana in this area looks like when you open a hole to the leyline that runs beneath this place. This is how it naturally flows when made visible!"

"What?" Elma looked at it again. It really was just squirming. Even the ground was shaking less.

"Argh!" the Goblomancer yelled as he rushed Elma.

"Hey, what gives?!" she yelped as she grabbed his hands while he pushed her around by the collar.

"Do you know how long it took me to put the control catalyst on that wellspring? I was finally getting enough fuel to test my hypotheses!" He headbutted Elma in a round of vengeful retaliation.

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have been messing with it! The mana here is turbulent or something!" Elma said as she punched him in the face.

"It is wild raw energy that can be utilized and channeled into something with structure! Something that could save millions!" He smashed his head into Elma again. "Baseless fear of destruction is keeping a wonderful source of power from the ones who need it most!"

Elma gritted her teeth. "Says the guy using monsters!"

"Don't judge the humble goblin by its appearances! The goblin is the monster most compatible with mortal life! It holds the secrets to the ultimate panacea!"

"What--"

He, filled with anger, punched Elma again.

"Elma!" Cindeen screamed. "I'm coming!"

The tired girl, panting and sweating, ran over. Halfway through her fifth step, she lost her altered form and fell over.

"You ruined this!" the Goblomancer yelled. "Now I'll have to rebuild and re-access the leyline!"

"Well, whoop-dee-do!" Elma shot back, unable to think through the situation.

Then, suddenly, the ground shook.

"Holy--what's going on now?!" Elma yelped.

"What? This..." the Goblomancer said, sweating.

The two were still in each other's grips, both still bleeding from every spot the other had struck.

"Hey, what did you do?!" Elma yelled.

"Woman, get it through your head! I wasn't doing anything dangerous! I was advancing science!"

The ground below their feet started glowing as the shaking increased.

"Then what do you call that, Goblomancer?!"

"My name's not Goblomancer! But... No, it's not possible..."

"What's not--"

The ground shook even more violently as cracks spread out and steam-like outpours of magic erupted from below.

"The leyline has become unstable! The odds of that happening were one in a million. This is impossible!"

Odds.

That word. Elma had a very nasty relationship with that word. She had only developed that relationship on this Mission, but though it was a new relationship, the mere mention of the word made a chill descend upon her soul.

Elma glanced over her shoulder at Cindeen and saw the girl rubbing her head.

"Oww," she whimpered, still unaware of what was about to happen.

"Heh, one in a million?" Elma said, wearing a pained smile, one full of annoyance. "Is that more unlikely than getting caught in a landslide, falling into quicksand, getting chased by beavuirrels and rolling logs?"

"What?" he asked as the light below their feet illuminated his face.

A pillar of light erupted from below the two, enveloping them.

"Elmaaaa!" Cindeen screamed.

Within the stream of light and raw magic, the two were still holding on to each other.

"Ack--pure life energy... Hey! You have to let me go! The stream itself is made of benign mana, but all kinds of harmful energies get dragged up with it, and the side-effects, if we stay in here too long, aren't good--hmm?" The Goblomancer noticed Elma's hands were trembling while his wounds were closing. "Miss?"

"Gaaaaaaaaah!" Elma screamed as she let go of the man and held onto her head. Elma clawed at her head as she forced her mouth close.

The mana burned--it took all Elma had to not scream again.

The Goblomancer, struggling to see Elma through the light, realized what was going on.

"Of course! You're a symbol of death! This stream isn't good for you!"

The ground beneath Elma's feet collapsed further as new propulsive forces tore up along the stream.

He held out his hand. "Miss!"

Elma struggled to look at him.

"You need to grab my hand!"

Elma didn't second-guess it. She reached for his hand, but just then, a wave of propulsive force shot out between the two of them.

"Miss!" The Goblomancer's regrown hand bubbled and stretched toward her. Elma grabbed the arm, but the stream of propulsive force blew their arms apart.

"Miss!" he yelled as it shunted him away from Elma.

"Damn it!" Elma cried as a new surge of vibrant green energy flowed through her.

This energy had no propulsive property--it was just a raw magic that penetrated her body, burning it like high currents burned out circuits.

"Damn it!" Elma roared again. The ground below her feet sank a foot lower. "I'm not--not here!"

The pain was immense. Yes, she would die if she failed here, but she would just reappear at the Hero Hub. That said--

"Nooooo!"

Elma's pride was roused. She didn't want to fail her Mission. It was beginning to dawn on her that she had certainly misjudged the situation to a degree, but even so, she didn't want to lose here. She wanted to survive. She wanted to prove that she could survive her own mistakes and live enough to fix them or at least dampen their impact.

"I..."

She recalled the status screens and her stats in comparison to her allies.

"I can be strong enough too!"

She released her own surge, blasting the leyline's outpour with her own withering mana.

"Come on!" Elma screamed as the stream stripped away patches of her skin. "I can be a Hero too, damn it!"

The ground ruptured further, releasing more of the leyline's unstable forces. Elma, the one caught in the middle, was swallowed up further.

"ELMA!" Cindeen screamed. She watched with tears welling in her eyes.

On the other side of the stream was Goblomancer, utterly confused. He shook his head and scrambled over to his broken podium.

"With all this energy pouring out..." He grabbed the podium and jammed it into the ground. "I used natural material because it would conduct the leyline's vitality-centered energies the best. With all this pouring out... It should be repaired by the sheer magnitude of the energies saturating the atmosphere."

He mumbled to himself the entire time that he repaired the magic governing his podium's use. While he did so, the branches grew back by themselves, some branches even growing leaves.

"Miss Symbol of Death, witness my science." He clapped his hands together. "With science, we can turn this hostile world into one where everyone can smile, free from the fear of illness and disability."

Roots grew out from the podium and went to the leyline's outpour. The moment they connected, the stream emitted the brightest flash and, as if it never existed, disappeared at the flash's end.

Cindeen rubbed her eyes.

"Elma?" she whimpered.

Her vision slowly returned to her. She gasped when all was settled.

"E-Elma!" Cindeen screamed as she rushed over to the severely injured but still breathing Elma.

Elma, her clothing damaged by the propulsive forces and her skin burned, with portions of her black hands turned white, glanced over at Cindeen.

"Don't make so much noise," Elma said with a smirk. She straightened up, wincing as she did. She noticed Cindeen's concern and gave her a thumbs-up.

Cindeen stood before Elma with stars in her eyes. "E-Elma, how did you do that? I didn't think you would be okay!"

"I blasted the--what did he call it--leyline? I blasted it with my mana. I realized that the energy had...life to it, so I figured my own mana would do something." Elma took a step and stumbled.

"Whoa! Be careful!" Cindeen said, catching her and helping her stand. "Please take it easy!"

"I'll be fine once I get home..." Elma mumbled.

She looked over to where the Goblomancer would have been. He was gone, his podium gone as well.

Elma kissed her teeth and closed her eyes. "Thank you."