Coloumb grunted as he hauled himself up over the edge of the cave. "Come on Kimen, decorating Hell awaits!" He stuck his hand over the edge to help his friend up.

Kimen followed Coloumb up the side of the rock wall, book bag (this time thankfully dry) hanging awkwardly from her shoulders and stuffed with a number of things she wanted to add to their secret base. The two of them had decided to call the place the High Elevation Laboratory and Library, or HELL for short. Mr. Kent used to talk about a place called Hell all the time but Kimen honestly did not know much about it other than it was a place where magic users went. It seemed a little amusing to the child that this place abriviated shared the same name. Regardless, this would be a secret spot for both of them to hang out without much worry or concern about being disturbed be it Coloumb with his experiments of Kimen with her reading. After a bit of climbing the child reached the ledge and pulled herself up. "Did you remember to bring a broom?" She asked.

Coloumb shook his head. "Wind crystals should be just fine." He put his hands on his hips and looked around. "We need some walls in here too."

Kimen crouched down and pulled the strap of his book bag off of his shoulder, "I brought some blankets so we don't have to sit directly on the floor here." Kimen said with a smile, opening up the bag and pulling out some old but thick looking comforters, "And yeah, we definitely need some walls to cut down on some of the wind. Do you think we can have a window too?"

Coloumb rubbed his chin as he looked at the entrance. "It'll be tricky. We'll have to put stuff in a gap between the walls." Coloumb started to load a wind crystal into his cylinder. "Time to start dusting."

Kimen stepped towards the back wall, bag and blankets clutched in her arms, she wanted to be out of the way as Coloumb put his alchemy to work here.

Coloumb fired the wind crystal, sending a cloud of dust flying out of the cave. "Good, good." He loaded and fired again, cleaning off the cave floor.

The floor now clean, Kimen placed his bag and blankets back down onto the floor and continued to pull out items that he had brought along to add to their secret base, among them were a couple of books, a small box of chalk with assorted colors, a couple of candles and some rope. "I found someone who had a crate they were willing to give us, but I couldn't haul it up here." Kimen said as he laid out each of the items.

"Hmm... Maybe I can try to get it up here." Coloumb started loading earth crystals into his cylinder. "I'll make a few walls now, where do you want them?"

"Hm... That is a pretty important question." Kimen sat down on one of the blankets and looked around the giant niche in the cliff wall. "We could do the whole thing and have a big interior space. Or we can have most of it walled off save for maybe the place where we climb up leaving enough for some sort of balcony area... or half..." Kimen folded his arms. He really hadn't thought this out, though he did rather like the idea of having an outside and inside area.

Coloumb shrugged and summoned barrier spikes in the middle of the room. "How is that?"

"Yeah! Exactly like that!" Kimen clapped in approval as she stood up and walked over to the wall of spikes, examining them more closely, "This is perfect Mr. Coloumb!"

Coloumb began making more walls going across the cave, leaving a gap so the two of them can get out of the back. "There, that's better."

A pair of noises could then be heard just outside, as if something was scraping against the rock wall. Immediately following this, the head of a red furred quadruped creature peered inside for a second before the rest of its body followed along with an enormous tan-skinned human male wearing with an equally large halberd in his hands.

After examining the area from its position near the entrance, the creature begins to speak as the large human remains silent, his hands gripped firmly on the halberd pointed towards Coloumb. "Stand down, Sutan. They're just children." With a quick grunt, the enormous man takes a step back and places the base of his weapon on the stone floor.

"I assume you're the ones responsible for the cloud of dust just now. Do your parents know that you are here?" asked the creature, looking towards the older child.

Coloumb frowned. "Who are you? And they don't care, seeing as how my friends parents aren't here and I don't have any." He pulled out some more crystals and rolled them around in his hand. "What do you two want?"

"Dog!" Kimen didn't hear a word the creature was saying. Everything else was quickly overlooked due to the fact that it closely resembled a canine in many ways. The child stumbled back, eyes wide in terror and heart beating fast in his chest, "DOG! DOG! DOG!" He continued stepping backwards, tripping over one of the blankets he had set out. Kimen, seeing no other way to escape quickly took hold of it and tossed it over his head, curling up into the smallest ball he could manage to make underneath it.

Coloumb looked back as Kimen has a panic attack. "Uhh... Kimen? Are you ok?" He tilted his head. "Oh dear..."

"There is no need to be disrespectful, unless your purpose for being here bears ill intentions." noted the creature. "I would like to make you aware that you are within the limits of Cosmo Canyon. I am Nanaki and I represent Chief Bugenhagen." During Nanaki's introduction, the enormous human glanced over at the younger of the two children, cowering under their blanket. He began to walk towards the seemingly familiar child as Nanaki continued on, speaking towards the older child.

"You seem to be making a few changes here. Do you intend to stay?"

Coloumb shook his head. "It's clubhouse, not an actual residence." He put the crystals away. "Is there some sort of form we need to fill out for that sort of thing?"

"Big dog. Big dog. Big dog." Kimen whimpered from under the blanket, shivering in fear. She could hear footsteps getting closer and her breath was caught in her lungs. She was unable to move. The big dog was getting closer. It was going to rip her apart. It was going to eat her.

"I see." stated Nanaki as he gazed over the protruding spikes in the ground. "We are simple but reasonable people here. Everyone is welcome so long as they do not bring trouble with them. This place has been abandoned for some time since its previous resident was lost to the Gi Tribe." At that point, the sound of Sutan's feet ceased as he towered above the blanket ball. He bent down and reached for the blanket to pull it off and confirm whether or not the child was who he believed it was.

Nanaki continued on. "You are welcome to claim it, but I ask that you treat it with respect and do not disturb the people here. You should come by the Chief's sometime after you've settled in and introduce yourself."

Coloumb nodded. "Alright. We're getting the place set up to be a proper clubhouse, but we can stop by after that." He looked over where the burly man was about to take the blanket off of Kimen. "Can you uh... Control your partner? He's scaring my friend."
Kimen felt the blanket being pulled off over his back and he screamed, thinking he was suddenly being attacked by it. But no attack followed. The child felt no pain from teeth sinking into his skin. Shivering, Kimen forced one of his eyes open, seeing not a giant paw but a human foot next to him. Slowly he looked up, looking up at Sutan with horrified, pleading eyes.

"Very well." said Nanaki as he glanced towards Sutan as well, a little off guard that his sentinel was terrifying the child for no apparent reason. Sutan grunted at Kimen with approval as he dropped the blanket back on top of them, returning to Nanaki's side. "Someone you know, Sutan?" asked Nanaki as Sutan grunted once more. "Is that right?" questioned Nanaki with shock as he gazed over at the petrified blanket.

"Come on out, child. There is nothing to be afraid of here. Sutan says you're a good kid, so I assume you were once staying at the Jinsaka Manor?"

"Do they know each other already?" Coloumb scratched his head. "Hey, calm down Kimen. There aren't any cogs here."

Kimen did not emerge from under the blanket. It was probably the safest place she knew of at the moment, and she did not dare to peak out from underneath and look at the big dog that was talking to her. She was already scared, if she did that she probably wouldn't be able to speak. "Y-yes. I-I-I r-remember M-mr. S-Sutan."

Any doubts Nanaki may have had about these children and their intentions would have cleared up immediately following Kimen's confirmation. "Wonderful! Make yourselves at home, then. Any acquaintance of the Paranormal Deliverance Force is certainly welcome here. Let me know if you need anything, understand?"

"Uh... Sure, we can do that." Coloumb shook Nanaki's hand. "We'll come by the chiefs house once we get set up here and say hi."

That would be easier said than done. Still Kimen nodded from under the blanket, "U-u-uh-huh." He said meekly.

"Enjoy your stay here, then. Do give Mr. Jinsaka my regards if you see him again." said Nanaki as he returned the shaking of paw and hand with Coloumb, proceeding to head towards the cliff's edge. "Come, Sutan!" he barked as he leapt off, Sutan grunting and following behind him.

"Uh-h-huh." Kimen repeated again, nervously peaking out from under the blanket at the sound of the dog's departure, "I-is it gone, Mr. Coloumb?" Kimen asked quietly.

"Yeah, he's gone." Coloumb walked over and crouched down in front of you. "Are you alright?"

Kimen sat up, pulling the blanket from her head but still holding it tightly around her shoulders, "Y-yeah." Kimen said, looking around to make sure herself that the dog had left. She took a few deep breaths to try to get her shaking under control, "Dogs are really scary. I didn't know they could c-climb up walls like that."

"That wasn't a dog, that was a dog-like man." Coloumb shrugged. "Well, regardless, he's gone now. Let's get back to work, shall we?"

"It looked like a g-giant dog to me." Kimen said standing up but still holding the blanket tightly in place in the event that he would have to make another sudden retreat. "Do you think it will come back?" Kimen asked. He wasn't sure he would be comfortable spending time up here if it made another surprise visit like that.

"Not of we keep out of trouble. We should be fine. I can take care of it." Coloumb smiled and nodded at Kimen.

Kimen nodded, then nervously took the blanket off of her shoulders and started laying it out on the ground. It wasn't a proper rug or anything, but it would probably do until they got something that worked better.

Coloumb went back to making the wall across the cave. "Where should we put the window?"

kimen looked around for a good spot, then pointed out a place that would be well away from the entrence and allow the child to keep an eye out on things incase the giant dog decided to come back again when she was up here alone. "How about this spot?"


Coloumb nodded. "Alright, stand back." He pulled out his sword and started hacking a hole into the wall. "Hopefully this barrier won't break."

Kimen stood back as instructed, then watched Coloumb worked with his fingers crossed. He could certainly survive without there being a window there, but it would be nice to have some amount of natural light to read by if his efforts succeeded.

Coloumb grunted as the entire barrier crumbled away. "Blast it, now I need another one." He summoned another one and started hacking away again.

Kimen frowned at the barrier's failure. "If it doesn't work this time, I am sure I can figure out an alternate method." Even if Kimen had to find some wood planks, a hammer and nails to so do. "Lets see. We have something on the floor so we can sit down on it, we have some candles for light though we need a good place to put them." There appeared to be a couple niches and shelves in the wall that could work for those luckily. "I brought a couple books. A nice person offered us a crate that we could store things in or use as a table but we would have to haul it up here." Kimen returned to the book bag on the floor and started shuffling though it.

"We'll get the crate after I cut this hole." Coloumb kicked at where he had been cutting, causing a rough square to fall out of the barrier. "Well, that works."

"Good work Mr. Coloumb" Kimen exclaimed smiling at the newly formed window. She pulled a deck of playing cards from her bag as well as a pair of binoculars, setting the two on the floor next to the box of chalk before running over to see the view that the two of them had.

"I'm going to see about that crate. Where is it?" Coloumb looked out the window as well.

"You know that candy shop we visited last time?" Kimen smiled then pulled a bag of flavored licorice sticks and chocolate from her pocket, "I talked to a nice lady in there when I went to pick up our reward for a good days work."

Coloumb nodded. "So she has the crate? Well, let's go get some candy. And a crate too."