Having been prepared for disappointment, Laoren was a little surprised as Mia prepared to grab her. Maybe not as surprised as she might normally have been since this one had definitely proven herself to be the type to go along with things, but it was still something she would get to cross off her rather long bucket list.

The self-proclaimed human obediently folded up her single wing and balled herself up a bit as Mia grabbed her. Fortunately, her hired adventurer's strong build covered her from quite a bit of the wind chill, at least at first. After they bounced the first time, Laoren went rolling at a slight angle, but she was able to use the air resistance from her one wing to slow herself down very slightly so she didn't move too far.

By the time Laoren managed to orient herself and stand up straight, Mia had already found her. She smiled broadly even through the chilling cold as she patted the snow off of her jacket and wing, feathers fluttering as she tried to shake herself free of icy debris. "I haven't done a train jump before, but the last time I fell from any great height, my wing unfurled and a gust of wind sent me spinning who-knows-where," she finally explained. "This was much better in comparison."

Looking around, Laoren's eyes caught on to a 'twig' of sorts in the distance, a branching road in the tree. "That-a-way's where we need to be," she said with a very slight chatter of her teeth. "I should have asked earlier, but are you better or worse in the cold because you've got flames and such?"

It seemed like the cold was a double-edged sword here. Still, Laoren considered it a stroke of luck that she'd managed to snag someone with fire-based abilities right off the bat. "Once we're finished, I can guide us to a camp a little bit past our destination so we can warm up before hitching a ride back. I set it up on my way here," she reassured the fire-wielder. Certainly it would be no substitute for a cozy room in the city, but at least she had the foresight to tuck away a few ways to defrost.

"Oh, and my magic is mostly an offensive aid," she explained as they walked. "It's effective against certain types of monsters, like what we hope to encounter today." After saying this, she rummaged through her pockets, eventually fishing out a small rubber gavel. It appeared to be a novelty toy of some sort, giving off a squeak and a small glow when she smacked it against her palm. "Well, this will do."

Holding the gavel in her hand, Laoren slowed her pace as she concentrated on it. A black haze began to creep from her wrist and towards the toy, surrounding it in smoky energy. "Nothing too fancy. Just a straightforward 'hurt-em-more' type of magic, you know? Wears off after a few minutes." She offered up the empowered toy to Mia for examination.

As they talked, what seemed to be a large, conical structure came into view further down the path. From this distance, it seemed to be frozen over and snow-covered.

"I never take the trains at all," Laoren responded firmly. "But I figure we should complete the train theatrics experience, since we did the jumping off part and whatnot." It was evidently in her nature to play at dramatics, and it was slowly becoming clearer that the novella-reading, reckless sort of Outsiders she had interacted with in the past were likely a conscious choice on her part.

After Mia took the hammer in hand, Laoren made a pushing motion with her thumb, miming an injection. "My power can indeed work directly, although oddly not on myself." She had tried a few times in the past to imbue herself with her power, but it seemed she resisted the effects of her own magic. Unfortunately, there remained no one who could help her out on that front, and combined with her own apparent inadequacy with weaponry, it was easy to see why the branch-walker went into society to ask for help most of the time.

Mia's flames snapped Laoren out of her thoughts as a trail of fire and steam suddenly appeared before them. She whistled a little as she picked up the pace to follow along. "I'll have to remember not to slip on the ice here if I come back alone later..." The mention of the weapon caused a lopsided grin to appear momentarily on Laoren's face, but she didn't say anything.

The cleared path allowed the two to reach their destination quickly and without much issue. As they drew close, the details of the structure became clearer: a tall construct, rivaling a five-story building, shaped like a bamboo shoot. It appeared to be made entirely out of ice underneath the layer of snow which covered it. Its most noticeable attribute, however, was a strong aura of unease which it projected. Just looking at the object was an unsettling ordeal, though nothing about it seemed obviously eldritch.

"Yeah, this is it. Once we destroy this, quest complete." There did not seem to be any monsters around, nor any tracks made by monsters, though the snow could easily have covered those. Laoren herself did not seem particularly wary of that, her frowning face focused on the icy cone.

Months was a bit of an understatement at times, and the thought brought Laoren's customary thin grin to her face as it passed her mind. "I spend most of my time out on the branches, actually. Before going in to Tescaula, I was briefly in Caeluma, but before that...I might've not been back for around half a year or so?" The bird was certainly quite the spectacle, but not anywhere that a person like Laoren could stay comfortably for a long amount of time.

She was aware enough, however, that such a lifestyle was unusual by most standards, and so turned to the matter at hand. There had been, of course, the faintest of hopes that Mia's fires could somehow just blast down the entire thing, but that would've been unfair as an expectation anyway.

"It was supposed to be a dungeon-type thing, if only my magic was up to snuff. That's why I put the legendary staff on the shopping list. Although..." Mulling over their day's shopping, Laoren rummaged through the trip supplies and pulled out the fluffball's special warmth tonic. "I have heard tell that some people draw out the full extent of their powers when their bodies sense extreme danger."

She uncorked the bottle with a nervous expression. "I don't know if I can do this after what you told me. Pour it down my throat for me?" Another unreasonable demand, but Laoren figured Mia would go for it since she'd already agreed to the dramatic action-scene train dismount.

Laoren was a bit surprised when Mia pushed up on her jaw, but swallowed hastily anyway.

The different flowers had developed many forms of spices over time. Laoren was no culinary expert, but over the years, she had sampled many different dialects of cuisine. Some forms of spiciness felt as though they remained on the tongue. Others burned the back of her throat. The most insidious of all, however, flared straight up through her nasal passages. She'd often thought that, while she could get used to the tongue and perhaps throat burning given enough time, she would never really come to enjoy the sort of spiciness that went up one's nose.

This concoction was all three and more. The unfortunate victim, not having experienced it before, could not even put together a coherent thought as to the degree and nature of the burn. It was as if she had ingested an eldritch being while snorting a line of a different eldritch being, such was the unknowable nature of the pain to her shocked brain. Her tear ducts immediately kicked into overdrive, and she let out a sound not unlike a wild beast being shot in the flank by an arrow.

After what seemed an eternity, but was actually only a fraction of a minute, Laoren bent her mind to the task at hand. Spicy suffering had dimmed her mind to all but the task at hand. She reached a hand forward to touch the icy cone. Immediately, its ominous nature became manifest as a visible, dark aura surrounding it. Slowly, the darkness began to coalesce in a tall, rectangular shape in front of Laoren.

With a booming, low tone, it suddenly resolved into the shape of a door, black and imposing. At seeing this, Laoren collapsed, not because of magical exhaustion, but because she was now violently shoveling snow into her mouth in a futile attempt to stem the pain in her mouth.

Laoren did not, or perhaps was unable to, respond until her mouth had been sufficiently numbed to the point where frostbite had become a potential concern. Lacking a convenient handkerchief, she resorted to grossly wiping her accumulated tears and snot from the pain onto the shopping list from earlier before crumpling it and putting it away into one of her pockets.

"We', 'ou shee..." This initial attempt at speech was followed by a few more seconds of rubbing her tongue with the warm parts of her hands and wrists to try and get some feeling back. "Well, you see. My non-combat magic allows me to pull forth, um. It's kind of hard to explain, but I basically take something not physical and then physical-ify it. In this case, I've taken the accursed power surrounding this bulb and, well..."

Laoren stepped forward and pushed the black gates in. Inside was a space larger than the structure behind the gates encompassed, as if the gates were actually a portal to somewhere else. The two could see a grand foyer, with a staircase in the rear, floor and furniture all shimmering ice. Although they couldn't see the sides well without stepping in, the staircase in the rear had two shadowy wolves standing in wait, with jagged ice protruding from their hide. These did not seem to take heed of the two adventurers yet.

"I made it into a dungeon. Should be a bit more up your alley now, right?" Laoren suggested with a slight tilt of her head.