Going splat face down in a big pile of sand was a singularly unpleasant experience, and Mibbet was quite willing to swear that she would if she got out of this she'd be picking sand out of her teeth for weeks. (To say nothing of other regions which are better left unmentioned.) But there was something more unpleasant still to come, with the realisation that all this sand was churning towards the center where there was a ruddy gap sucking the sand down.

Then came another realisation, the walls of this trap were made of really really really thick glass, and curved in towards the center of the room, in a shape that just screamed hourglass. Mibbet had absolutely no desire to feel the pinch when it came to time, and was pretty sure she didn’t want to find out how narrow the middle was. So she started desperately clambering, slipping and sliding all the way, back towards the outside edge, coughing and spluttering the same instruction to the others between mouthfulls of sand.

She considered just flooding the bottom bulb out, then remembered that was a recipe for quicksand, which despite the name is an unpleasantly slow way to go. She’d never met a frog personally who had gone that way, and had zero desire to become somebody elses anecdote fodder, as a frog or as a Princess. There was only one way out of this, and that was the glass. So she scrambled forward in a half crawl, half swim aiming for the edge and by extension the glass, slamming choppy into the glass walls over, and over, and over. But it seemed that while they spiderwebbed with cracks they would take more force to give.

Of course that didn’t stop her trying as tired as she was to break free, but that was a lot of sand to fight while trying to crack more sand (or at least the silica from it made into a several inches thick wall via excessive heat, and looking at the quality of the work a proper purification process.) She needed more firepower.... wait... fire, that was it, but she really sucked at fire magic. All she had was water and ice.

“Wait a second,” Rosalind chimed in “you have water and ice, make the water hot, then blast the side with ice, just not too much water, we don’t want quicksand in here.” Mibbet didn’t quite get it, (not many physics classes include frogs after all, at least not the hopping croaking variety, and frogs on a whole have something of a bias against hot water for the most part, for understandable reasons, it isn’t usually good news for them when a boiling pot is in their proximity.)

“How do I make the water hot?” Mibbet asked, scrabbling not to get sucked down again.

“make a water ball and churn the water good and fast, if you wanna make it a little faster get a little bit of sand in there. You want that water moving faster than anything you’ve ever done before, really really mix it up OK?”

Mibbet still didn’t get it, but Rosalind had earned her trust, plus at this point she was somewhat out of ideas, so she thought hot thoughts (like soup in case anybody has a dirty mind) while churning up a water ball on a scale that took all her effort to control until it was steaming then slammed it into the glass as hard as she could manage, noticing the glass cracking some more.

“Now ice magic,” Rosalind screamed as Mibbet scrambled to clear the pinch and aim an advanced ice spell right where the hot water had hit. Noticing to her delight that the crack was widening, one more round ought to do it. Sir Leeroy and Errol were helping having clambered onto the ice and started to hack away at the glass between blasts. Diving clear as another boiling hot water ball struck the glass walls. Causing the crack to widen enough for sand to start spilling out of the side. That did it, a couple more hits and they would be clear. But Sir Leeroy wasn’t swimming any more, now it really was even more urgent than before, especially since the sand flow had started to slow. Which in the circumstances was either very good news, or absolutely terrible, and either way cracking this trap, by cracking this trap was the only way to be sure.

Mibbet clambered to the surface once more, while Errol treaded sand as best he could (it’s a bit like treading water, but harder, and gets sand everywhere including all the bits of your armour that are really really hard to clean.) Sending another hot water ball, followed by a carefully set up ice blast at the glass walls, then ducking for cover after a very worrying sounding creaking noise became audible, followed by a crack, a creak, a groan, and last but definitely not least a BOOOM, apparently glass didn’t have a friendly reaction to sudden temperature changes. as an entire side of the glass caved, filling the air with more sharp bits that a surprised kitten horde collectively unleashed from their carriers while simultaneously being unexpectedly patted in the small of the back. (Except without the pirrup as an early warning system.) After which a load of sand poured out of the side, spilling them onto the ground below.

After ten minutes of coughing and spitting up more sand than any living being ever has any business consuming, even at a beachside picnic, they were finally recovered enough to find each other, and worryingly notice that they seemed to still be sans a Sir Leeroy. They scrambled and dug in the sand, getting themselves more than once on glass pieces, hoping they would make it to him before he drowned. When finally they heard a familiar cough of a human being who has consumed more sand than was healthy. It sounded like it came from above. Mibbet looked up, and instantly wished she hadn’t. It seemed for Sir Leeroy all that time skipping leg day had finally paid off. As he had been saved by the power of abs. His entire upper half had apparently stopped up the pinch of the hourglass while his legs were thoroughly wedged in the lower half.

“We’d best find something to use as a shovel.” Mibbet said, still regretting having looked up. “we can’t leave it... I mean him swinging in the breeze like that.”