Now she had more to occupy her mind than her thoughts of impending execution Mandy instead threw herself into the job that all this palaver had distracted her from, as she walked she made repairs to the delicate balance of a machinery Mibbet and the others could hear but not see behind the walls.

“My family have been the guardians of this place for generations,” she explained. “This machine is really powerful, given the power source that isn’t so surprising. But it’s also old, like three pre human species old, apparently when their species struggled to survive a climate shift the duty was handed on to the Pyre-men, who weren’t ideal for the job, but somebody had to take over right? Then the Racs, they were sort of a giant bird with little hands. And then once they were near extinction the humans, my family, took over.”

“That’s a lot of work over a long time, but what does it do?” Mibbet asked, inside her Rosalind was nagging her not to trust a witch, so Mibbet quickly reminded her if not for that spell they never would have met. Rosalind’s reply was as expected to point out that she really wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but given that Rosalind routinely used sarcasm a mile thick Mibbet didn’t take it personally.

“Patience, some things can’t really be explained without being seen, and this is definitely one of those things. But let me guess your reason for being here is because the area is drying out?”

“Good guess, yeah if the machine is supposed to keep the water flowing is it broken?”

“Not exactly, the wetlands that used to be around here are the secondary feature of the machine, it has a more important job. Keeping an optimum environment locally is considered non essential, and right now we just don’t have the power to do it, so the energy was redirected where it was needed.”

“Why do I get the feeling this is going to get all complicated?”

“Probably because it is going to get really complicated, tell me Princess, all sentient creatures in this land are considered subjects aren’t they?”

“Yups, we’re sworn to protect them as best we can, unless they try to overthrow us, then all bets are pretty much off. Treason is pretty much a get out of obligation to protect free card. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do my best to figure out the reason it happened, and hear folks out.”

“Even if they can’t speak?”

Mibbet pondered that for a moment, then remembered her time out there on the pond, subject to the whim of everything that thought she looked like a tasty snack, the answer, at least to her was obvious. “Especially then, after all of all those out there who needs to be heard more? If I went round only listening to the people who shouted loudest this kingdom would be going to hell in a hand-basket a long time ago. So I’m guessing from that question it’s time to listen to the voiceless?”

************************************************************************

They were so tiny, and swimming so slowly Mibbet had to swallow back every froggy urge in order to not give in to instinct. But something inside her, (other than Rosalind screaming at her not to do it) was telling her not to eat them no matter how tadpoley they seemed.

In the centre of the mechanical maze Mandy maintained was a strange looking pool, full of what looked like lime flavoured gelatin or spawn, but in it were suspended lots and lots of little creatures, that looked a lot like teeny tiny alligators with really really long jaws.

“I thought the Caymen were long extinct” Sir Leeroy said, awestruck at the impossibility of what he was seeing.

“Outside of this pool they really are, the ambient water temperatures couldn’t support them any more, and they didn’t want to die out so they created this.”

“What is that stuff? It isn’t just water is it?” Mibbet asked, reaching out to touch the goo.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, if you touch that stuff you’ll die of old age a long time before you manage to pull your hand free, time in there moves several million times slower”

“Wait so this wobbly green slime actually slows time down? So that’s what this machine is for?”

“Pretty much yeah. We want the Caymen to survive we need water warm enough for them to cope with, but now we don’t even have water nearby to support them, and we can’t turn off the temporal suspension without that. So we’ve got a real mess here, and all I can do with this mess is hold it together and hope that can buy us the time to fix this mess. Now to make matters worse she’s gradually running out of power, and we don’t have what it takes to drive it anymore.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding me,” Mibbet replied. “Please tell me that this entire place isn’t driven by what I think it is or have a headache pill ready.”

“It’s powered by divinity.”

Mibbet held out her hand to Errol, who with a groan reached into the pocket dimension and pulled out a little bottle passing it to The Princess.

“Called it, so extinct god, dead god, or missing god? What flavour of disaster are we dealing with today?”

“Wait, you understand divinity?”

“High priestess of the Great God Wannashowa, let’s just say we’ve had more than our share of dealings with divinity, and each one has been its own special brand of migraine inducing.”

“Then please, take a look at it and see if there’s any way to help”

“OK then lead the way.

Navigating through the mass of gantries and tunnels leading to the power source and controls turned out to be more straightforward than expected, in part because having somebody with you who knows where the off switch was would usually be considered cheating. But in this situation they were happy for it as they approached the thing that could have been an altar, or a desk. But now given the context the altar did seem the most likely option. Mibbet found it weird that she could understand the text on the altar (or at least she would. But once you start dealing with Gods with a capital G you got used to the weird.) Now the only question is who the hell was Drizul?