Maverick shrugs and pulls out his daggers. "Fine. Then if Shelly's having trouble, I just need to stab whatever is giving her trouble."

Lucky can barely make out what Shelly is saying. "Please calm down. We can't work through this if we panic and especially if we don't work together as one." It's more of the same. Shelly trying to keep the people under control as they increase the number of complaints quicker than she can address them.

"If the problem were the kind that could be solved with blades, I'm sure they would've solved it themselves by now.  Please stand back, Maverick.  If it turns out me and Joe get stuck here with them, I want you to go back and warn Channelwood."

Lucky takes a deep breath and knocks firmly on the door.  "Hello!  Lucky from Channelwood here!  May I come in?"

  Yeah, but then it would be Maverick stabbing the problem.  Joe knows quality stabbing when he hears it (not that you can hear when Maverick stabs something, unless he wants you to).

  "We have a very, very slow evacuation plan if needed." Well, grapple lift one or two people out at time is better than 'pfft, your stuck here lateeeeer'.

The doors open.

(Watch from 1:39 to 1:43)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C687RBDfUx4

This is how the crowd reacts to Lucky and Joe entering.

Shelly is seen standing on top of a table, her royal guard to either side of her. "The message got through! See? Channelwood will help us out!" She then hops off the table and runs to Lucky and Joe, yoinking them both in for a big seabear-hug. "How did you get in? The elevator?"

Lucky was giving a sheepish smile and wave to the sharktacons only to be taken by surprise by Shelly glomp!  He brightens up and returns the hug.  "So good to see you well.  After seeing the lake frozen over, I was worried I'd find you encased in ice.  Yes, it was the elevator shaft we used to get down here.  That would be the slow evacuation plan Joe was referring to.  What happened here?  How can we help?"

  Seabears always give such big hugs, it's hard compete as he hugs back.  Must be all that that exercise from swimming so much. (How else will they launch hard enough to headbutt a helicopter to death?).

  "Hopefully it doesn't come to carrying you all out of here personally, but it is an option.  Still, hopefully you have some idea what is going on beyond 'things are freezing'"

Shelly says, "Well... yeah. Getting out through the elevator shaft wasn't exactly an option before. Digging your way into the elevator is doable, but the doors wouldn't even open until someone on the outside dug their way to it, so... yeah. Needed outside help. And our only other way out would be out to the ice. Which is frozen solid even up to our inner pools, so any aquatic types in our base will be going stir crazy by the end of tomorrow. ....that said, us having the option to leave is a major relief. But we would like to solve the problem here and hopefully prevent a mass exodus to Channelwood."

And Shelly doesn't know Channelwood is already dealing with a whole OTHER mass exodus.

Lucky looks sympathetic.  "Gosh.  Sorry you all were trapped.  That must've been real scary not knowing your S.O.S. got through.  But we came right away.  So as you can imagine, we're pretty tired.  There's only the few of us Channelwood has it's hands full with helping a desperate community of badgers establish a new home.  But I'm sure soon everyone will be available to help in any way they can...  Boy...  How can we help?  Was it magic that froze the lake?"

He's really hoping the answer's as simple as, 'I dropped my magic trident, so all we have to do is dig it out of the ice.'  Very hard work, sure.  But at least there'd be something that can be done besides evacuate.

  "There does seem to be a theme of water problems the past few days, yeah."

Shelly nods to Lucky and says, "The problem came when a strange vehicle dropped some kind of weird metal spherical thing into the lake. It flash-froze the lake. I was in it at the time and I barely escaped, swimming at top speed back into Aquarius. Mei-Ling thinks it's a chemical reaction and is trying to work on a counter to the problem, but in the meantime, half of Aquarius' functionality is gone because it depended on running water that is now frozen. But with limited time before we begin suffocating down here and possibly starve... I had to send out a signal to you guys ahead of time."

Shelly looks at Joe and Lucky and says, "Gosh. They must really be busy to have sent only two of you." Yeah. Notice how there has been no mention of Maverick lately? He is nowhere to be seen.

At Joe's mention of other water problems Lucky gets a far away look and mews sadly.  "Those poor people.  Their home turned deadly.  At least two dead.  Forced to flee into hostile territory..."

He snaps out of it and gives Shelly a sad smile.  "I was so worried for you.  So glad to see you alive.

"I wonder if there's an off switch on that metal sphere.  But first thing's first.  We gotta focus on immediate problems.  Joe and I are pretty good hunter / gatherers.  We can go forage in the woods to supplement your food stores.  Or we can help however else you'd like for us to help."

'The child is missing' is a cause of worry for a whole other set of reasons than usual when it comes to Maverick.

"If the device is still turned on, then rigging up something to track it instead of just a metal detector would probably be a good idea."

Shelly looks concerned for Lucky when he gives hints of his recent experience. She nods and says, "Thanks for the help." Then looks at Joe. "Alright... you two go see Milloni, then. Maybe you can come up with something with her. She sure could use the help... the poor lady is rather sick and is pushing herself since she is our primary technology expert."

She turns to the crowd. "Don't forget what I said! We are getting through this. But if you work together and we will get through this quicker! Now; With Channelwood having dug us a way out, we are no longer in an "icy grave" as some of you said. So no more doom and gloom comment! Go do your assignments!"

While there are a few in the crowd who grumble as if annoyed they no longer have an excuse to complain, most of the crowd is not only relieved, but anxious to get busy and work off that tension they had just moments ago.

Shelly faces Joe and Lucky. "Joe, Lucky, follow me." she leads the pair towards the tech department, where Milloni usually works her magic.

Assuming the two follow, they would soon see Milloni is asleep at her desk.

Lucky shrugs.  "When it comes to all that technical stuff the furthest my skills go is replacing a broken spring in a bear trap.  So you may be the one doing most of the helping, Joe."

Lucky makes the point, "Now that you're all not trapped down here, Milloni can get some much needed rest."

Lucky follows.  When he sees Milloni at her desk, Lucky's heart goes out to her.

"It would be more of a setback for either of you to catch her illness, so I'm volunteering to be the one to carry her to her bed.  I hate to disturb her rest, but sleeping on a desk is no way to recover.  Maybe she'll even sleep better knowing that help has arrived."

  "I'll see if I can find their notes without messing up their organization" be it sorted or 'pile' variety.

  "Though you may want to keep an eye on them for when they wake up in a panic thinking everyone is going to die because they fell asleep... Or maybe wake them now and fill her in, so they can rest properly instead of exhaustion like."

Shelly goes to wake Milloni and explains what is going on. Milloni nods tiredly and waves at her notes. "Should... be... *yaaaaawn* puh... you... just read the thing."

Shelly nods. "Go ahead and escort her to her room, Lucky. Thanks."

Joe can see the notes. It's basic communications tech notations. Milloni was hoping to pick up on any control signals or other remote signals in order to find the device's location.

"Good luck with the teching, Joe.  I'll come back and offer a hand once I get her tucked in.

"Lean on me, Milloni.  You've earned a good long rest.  And thank you for your hard work.  Rest assured, Joe is really good and can pick up where you left off."

He offers an arm-around to carry Milloni to her room and tuck her in.  Once she's situated he'll return to help.

  "Thanks Lucky, at least Milloni seems to have done most of the work already." MAYBE!  He's just saying that right now, hopefully it's true.

  He'll do some checks on the remote signal end but he honestly expects it to be more of a 'turn it on, the end' device.

Lucky is able to find Milloni to her room. "I wanna... do more..." but within a second or two of contact with her bed, Milloni falls back to sleep.

Meanwhile, Joe's checks reveal that there is an energy signal that is not Aquarius detectable in the lake.

"Sure thing!"

Unless Lucky can find a glass of water to leave within Miloni's reach, he'll leave his own canteen for her.  He returns to Joe and Shelly.

"Out like a light, poor girl.  She's so sweet.  Even with help here, and the condition she's in, she still said she wanted to help more.  So how are things?"

  "Well, there is an energy signal.  I want to be sure we can track it more closely though because 'somewhere in the lake' is a lot of ice to go through."

Shelly nods. "Thanks, you two."

The signal is pinpoint-able. It is between Aquarius and the west side of the lake, between the surface of the lake and the lake's bed. So it will still be a lot of ice to get through, regardless. But from the looks of it, it will be a lot easier to dig for it from above the lake than to try from Aquarius.

The downside, of course, is the increased chance of being spotted by a stray drone.

Upon seeing/hearing this data, Shelly says, "We also know you won't freeze simply by touching the ice. Had I been in the water when it froze, I'd be stuck because it would become ice around me. But touching it won't freeze you. If we can assemble a team to dig for the device, digging will go a lot quicker.... I'll get on that."

She hurries off towards the other people.

Lucky smiles and nods.  "You're welcome, Shelly.  I'm so glad you all are alive.  More than happy to help make sure it stays that way."
As Shelly is leaving he waves and says, "I'll catch up in a bit.  I've got an idea for camo out on the ice."

Once she's out of earshot he whispers, "Maverick?  You here?"

  Joe doesn't even bother looking for Maverick.  We all know this is not out of any lack of concern for the boy.

  "Is it a white sheet tarp?"  Hey, it's a cartoon/comic/video game universe.  Ice is either solid white, or convenitnyl transparent.

The ice happens to be standard "can't really see past 6 inches" fogginess levels.

Maverick's voice answers from behind Lucky and Joe. "Yes."