The Ghost Town

"Our best bet probably is to find the building that the town used for storage," Dean mused, searching the streets for such a building. "If not, some of the houses probably have a small supply to melt the area in front of their doors-"

"Salt melts the ground here?" Zalio interrupted, eyes wide.

Dean groaned. "I meant the snow and ice. Anyways, homes probably have a little, as well as any public building."

"Well," Kartiel said from the back, stretching and giving a particularly loud yawn as he did so, "I'll teleport us back with the stuff when we find it. Then we can go all Supernatural and surround ourselves with salt."

Lasan tried to hide his grimace. He didn't much like salt; it always clung to his scales and made him feel like he was walking through a desert (a feeling he was very familiar with).

Pointing to the tall metal structure he'd woken up on, Aegeas said, "There has to be something up there, right? If not salt, then maybe water."

"Hm," Dean said, looking up at what Aegeas was pointing at. "Good point. Now we just need something to carry it with. It's a shame I forget to put a large empty container in my bag-"

He stared back at said bag, suddenly recalling that he had seen his brother going through it before he left for the case he had been on before this. He placed his backpack on the ground and started to dig through it. After a minute of searching, he found what he was looking for - a large gigantic metal container, made solely out of iron. He pulled it out of the bag. It was enormous compared to the small backpack it had come out of, which, naturally, elicited a couple of surprised noises from the others.

"What?" he questioned, plopping it down on the ground next to him. "Never seen a bottomless bag before?"

From the looks he was receiving, he was guessing that it was a no. "Luci was smart enough to pack a container that I could use for a situation like this, so we should be alright-"

"Lucy?" Kartiel interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "Who's she? Your girlfriend-"

"Luci is my sweet, actual ray of sunshine baby brother," Dean cut him off, slipping his backpack back on and resting his bat on his shoulders. There was the matter of how he was going to carry the container, but he'd figure that out later. "And if you dare make a single jab at him I will personally make you regret the day that you were born. Good? Good."

Well then. No reason to challenge the man with the bat and the infinite bag. Lasan grabbed the edges of the container and pulled. It amazed him that a backpack so small could carry something as heavy and massive as this - the backpack sure lived up to the "bottomless" part. Some straining and grunting later, Lasan had lifted the container into the air. He leaned back to keep himself steady, but it didn't bother him too much. Lasan was fairly sure he'd lifted heavier things, and possibly heavier people.

"What else is in the bag?" Lasan said, taking a couple steps forward. At least he could see well enough, though he had to tilt his head up. "Could you fit someone in there?" The idea of being away from the rain did appeal to him, but he guessed there probably was a catch.

"I probably could stuff a body in there," Dean mused, looking back at his backpack. "Doubt it would be comfortable, but I'd probably be throwing remains in there. So I guess there would be no harm done! Besides miscellaneous corpses and containers, I tend to have everything a hunter like me could need. My refilling bottle, a salt shaker, some chalk, a couple of replacement nails for my bat, an extra cross - you know, the basics."

Lasan nodded. He didn't fully understand, but he was uncomfortable with the idea of corpses and bodies. Better not to say anything.

"Can we just go?" Aegeas said. "We've got better things to do than standing around."

He didn't like being rushed, but the otter did have a point. He started to head towards the giant metal structure before them, the others in tow as they approached it. When they were standing underneath it, Dean suddenly realized he had no idea how it was supposed to work - he had only seen them before, and had never once used them.

"You should put the big metal barrel under it," Kartiel chimed in. "I'll make a hole in the bottom, and whatever water is in there should all go flowing out."

Stepping under the giant structure, Lasan set down the metal container and jumped back. He didn't trust how large the structure was, much less all the rust clinging to its nuts and bolts. Being crushed by debris, or drowned in the water pouring out from the structure, weren't things on his to-do list.

Aegeas leaned against the container and looked up at the structure. "How much water is in there?" he said, voicing Lasan's thoughts. "Some of us can handle water better than others" - a quick glance and a nod in Lasan's direction - "so we may need to move out to somewhere safer before we do anything."

Dean crossed his arms and stared up at the structure in question, trying to guess how much water it could possibly hold. From the lack of a response on Charlotte, Herobrine, Kartiel or Cornyx's parts - the only other people there who seemed to be from Earth - it seemed like no one was quite sure how much water was sitting around in it.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Kartiel's plan might not be the best idea," Charlotte piped up, which earned her a glare and a pout from her apparent friend. "We don't want to waste water. And if there's more than what the container can hold, it's going to go spilling over the sides."

Herobrine gave a small nod in agreement.

Zalio tilted his head to the side as he took another step towards it. "There must be someway of getting water from it. Putting a whole through the bottom definitely isn't the most effective way of storing and accessing water."

Aegeas walked over to the stairs, staring up at the structure through the late-night darkness. From his perspective, the steep steps shot up, getting blurrier in the distance. Honestly, it was more like a ladder than stairs, which complicated things. "There might be something up there," he said, grabbing onto the railing and frowning. "But I'm not sure how Lasan's going to carry that thing to it."

Dean looked up the stairs, seeing the same problem that Aegeas did. As he tried to come up with some solution to solve it, three people all stepped forward at the exact same time: Zalio, Herobrine and Kartiel. It was awkward for a moment with all five of them trying to crowd under the staircase and get a good look at it, but it seemed like they had all gotten some kind of idea.

"Herobrine, you thinking what I'm thinking?" Kartiel said, gesturing at the container Lasan was holding. Herobrine nodded in agreement, though no words were spoken between the two.

But before Kartiel could say what he was thinking, Zalio chimed in from where he was standing. "I could use my magic, make a solid beam of light and lift it up," he said. He pointed at the container. Cue Kartiel sighing in disbelief, because that had apparently been his plan too.

"How would that work?" Aegeas said. He climbed up a couple steps when Lasan arrived and made the bottom of the staircase even more crowded. Aegeas stared into Lasan's eyes for once. It was weirdly satisfying not to be beneath him.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound very safe," Lasan said, pulling his hat off his head and shaking some of the water off.

"Oh, it's safe," Kartiel chimed in. He doubted they would believe him without a good example, so he made some darkness appear and form a platform beside his feet. He got onto said platform and demonstrated how sturdy it was as he made it go higher and higher. When he was a good two or three feet off of the ground, he jumped on it a few times to test its sturdiness.

"It would work like this Zalio, right?"

Zalio nodded.

Well, that demonstration was eerily familiar. But, if Kartiel's magic reminded Lasan of something, Kartiel certainly didn't, so Lasan chose not to say anything.

He took a few steps away from the staircase and the structure. "I'll stand about here," he said, pointing to the spot before running under the structure's shadow to pick up the container. "And Aegeas and some of the others should climb up the stairs to get things working by the time I make it up there. It should be a piece of cake, right?"

"We'll see," grumbled Aegeas to himself, but he nodded in affirmation and climbed up the next couple steps as Lasan lugged the container over to the right spot.

When Lasan arrived, container in both hands, he nodded in Zalio's direction. "Ready?" Lasan said.

Zalio nodded. "I'm ready."