Spirit Game

Chapter 24: The Rainmaker's Gambit

"Hey guys, I'm back!" Rain announced excitedly. He had only been gone for a few hours, though.

Chi and the others seemed fine; they were cooking by the fire. Rain had taught them how to make fire and even cook their food over the flame.

Chi and the others greeted Rain like toddlers meeting their parents, excited with their gifts.

"I've bought you armors and weapons. Now we can hunt for beasts and defend our territory without worry," Rain said, a proud smile on his face.

Chi marveled at her new bows and arrows while Chin, Chick, and Chill donned their new armor, sword, and shield, their faces beaming with excitement.

~Chi!~

~Chirp!~

"I'm glad that you all like it," Rain said warmly, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction seeing their joy. His eyes then shifted to the still-moping #4, who was sitting off to the side, looking dejected.

Rain walked over and crouched down beside #4.

"#4, you're still too small for armor and swords, so I bought you this instead," Rain said, handing #4 a blow dart. "It uses these tiny needles as bullets, so you can have something to defend yourself with."

~Chirp . . .~

#4 felt slightly better and forced a smile before going to a corner to play with the blow dart.

It wasn't much, but it would have to do for now, Rain thought, and then noticed there was a lot of meat cooking over the fire.

"Oh. Where did you find the meat?" Rain asked, curious.

"But before that, let's go and make some water!" Rain announced.

Chi and the others yelled in unison, but then they exchanged confused looks, not knowing what Rain was talking about.

Rain grinned wide and pulled out two big tubs and a kilo of salt. He had paid a hefty price to have these items extracted here, and it was a good thing that Chi and the others had defended the territory and killed two Quillwolves for that matter. His Soul Elixirs shot to 20 mL and his EP went from 100 to 700.

"Back to the main topic," Rain redirected himself. "We're going to make it rain here using these!"

Rain led the group to the salty marsh, and with Chi and the others' help, they placed a thin layer of salt marsh into the tubs.

"Alright, now that it's done." Rain directed his attention to Chi next. "Chi, I need your remarkable archery skills to pull this one off."

~chi?~

Chi bobbed her head to the side, puzzled.

Rain pulled out the plastic bags he had brought with him and put a sizable amount of salt in each one of them. "You know that we can make it rain by sprinkling salt onto clouds. They used this strategy in desert lands back in my world."

Chi's eyes widened in realization, and she nodded with determination. The others, still a bit confused, watched intently as Rain explained further. "We're going to shoot these bags into the sky and let the salt do its magic. It's called cloud seeding."

"I'm hoping that the same science applies here. Though this land is barren, we still have a few clouds on the horizon. So, Chi . . ."

Rain tightly tied the plastic containing the salt to one of the arrows and handed it to Chi. "I want you to shoot this arrow into that thick cloud over there. The next step might be difficult, but I know you can pull it off. I want you to simultaneously release another arrow and hit this plastic here so the salt will sprinkle over the clouds."

"Can you do it, Chi?" Rain asked, knowing he was asking a lot. But after witnessing Chi's prowess with ranged assaults, this strategy instantly clicked in his mind.

Instead of bringing water here every time, which wasn't sustainable, he would make his own water. With these salt marshes that could produce salt, and Chi's archery skills, he believed he could make it work!