Eventually, they had warmed up significantly, which, for the record, Wirt thought was much worse. Every one of the repetitive motions of rowing were pain, and even though the three alternated so that one of them was warming up and the other two were rowing, it was never enough of a break, and Wirt couldn't tell if the sharp pains in his fingers were from the cold, the splinters in the oars, or both. Every moment was agony.

At least the other two didn't seem like they were faring much better. With every rock of the boat, Norman looked sick to his stomach, and sometimes he seemed to forget that he was helping Adam lead them, so they missed a lot of turns, and either had to find another route, or fight against the current to make that turn. Every time they had to do that, it got harder and harder to fight against, and Wirt was worried that soon they'd lose to it.

"Hm," Dipper said after a while, the first thing that had been spoken in ages. Wirt and Norman looked over to him. "No matter how much the water level rises, the ceiling is still really high above us."

"That's a good thing," Norman replied. "We wouldn't want to find ourselves in a tunnel we don't fit in."

"That's true..." Dipper agreed slowly. He reached up a hand to the ceiling. "But there's no way to grab the crystals from down here."

Norman paused for a second. "Adam says that's for the best."

"Hm," Dipper said again. His gaze hadn't moved from the ceiling. "Um, Ash? Do you think you could get it down?"

Norman blinked, like he hadn't thought of that before.

"You said he could float, right?" Dipper explained, seeing his look. "Maybe he could grab it."

Norman sighed. "Ash said that he will try."

"Perfect. Thanks... Ash

Wirt and Norman paused their rowing while they waited for Ash to retrieve the crystal. Norman's eyes followed him up, so Wirt was able to follow his progress. Because of this, Wirt was also able to see Norman's sudden small look of disappointment before his eyes followed Ash back down.

"...Ash couldn't grab it," he told them. "I forgot to tell you, Ash hasn't been able to grab stuff for a while now, since we got to the cave."

Dipper frowned. "Oh... is he more transparent now, too?"

Norman blinked, and then nodded. Dipper looked troubled.

"Oh," he said. "So, do you think he'll disappear soon? What happens then?"

"Disappear?" Norman repeated, sounding worried. "Like... 'move on'? Go to the after life?"

Suddenly, Norman turned to the side, suddenly speaking to someone else. "No, Ash, I'm sure it'll be fine, you'll be alright, don't worry about it."

Dipper watched him carefully, and then leaned over to Wirt. "Huh... I guess that isn't the time limit he was talking about before."

"Oh." Wirt had completely forgotten about that. "Guess not."

Norman looked nervous as he turned back to Wirt and Dipper. "I... I'm sure he'll be fine," he said, but he didn't sound even remotely sure.

"...Probably," Wirt agreed eventually, when the silence grew uncomfortable. Dipper turned up to the ceiling again.

"Hm... I guess I'll keep thinking about that," Dipper told them, before shrugging it off, and they continued rowing.

A couple minutes later, when Dipper was on his break, he suddenly shrugged off his (still soaking wet) backpack, and rifled through it. He ignored Wirt and Norman's questioning looks, and took out a book. Wirt winced at it; it looked like it'd never open again. To be fair, Wirt doubted his notebook would either.

Dipper gave a sorrowful look to his ruined book, but soon turned his eyes up to the ceiling. He weighed his book in one hand, and then aimed up at the ceiling. Wirt realized what he was doing right as Dipper threw it.

It went up, hallway up to the ceiling, curved, and then fell back down into the water with a splash. Dipper, Wirt and Norman stared at it.

"...I-um..." Dipper said awkwardly, ringing his hands. "That was a test trial. I'll get it with this one."

Dipper help up another book, and aimed.

"Don't run out of books," Norman warned him, and Dipper let out an annoyed huff.

"I won't, I won't..." Dipper assured him, and with that, he threw the next book, with the same result. Once again, the same disappointed silence fell over the three. Dipper threw up his hands. "It's not my fault these books are so heavy!"

"Hm," Norman hummed judgementally. "How many books do you have left?"

Dipper huffed. "One."

Wirt made sure not to mention his notebook as Dipper dug his last book out of his bag. Once again, he aimed, took a deep breath... and then threw nothing as the book was ripped from his hand with an invisible force.

"What the-hey!" Dipper cried, whiling around at the book bobbing in the air. Norman raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot that Adam could still interact with stuff," he said, and he, Dipper and Wirt watched as the book went through all the motions with that it did with Dipper, before Adam hurled it hard enough at the ceiling that it took out a whole chunk, with enough crystals for their whole town. Unfortunately, it landed in the river. Dipper, Norman and Wirt watched it with the same disappointment as when the same thing happened with the book.

"...I don't think any of us will survive that," Norman pointed out. Dipper frowned.

"Well, I mean, we did once," Dipper argued.

"We tried to stay above the water, though," Wirt told him. Dipper stayed quiet for a couple seconds while he thought.

"I don't suppose any of us have a rope, do we?" Dipper asked. The current was pulling them along, quicker by the second. Soon enough, it would be impossible to get to the crystals. Still, Dipper waited until Wirt and Norman shook their heads before he sighed, stepping over his bag to the edge of the boat.

"Dipper..." Norman warned him. "Adam really doesn't want you to do this. Neither does Ash, really."

"It'll be fine," Dipper told them. "I'll just be right back..."

Before Wirt or Norman could argue with him more, Dipper dived into the water, and Norman and Wirt nearly tipped the boat over in their hurry to get to the edge.

"Dipper!" Wirt cried, but there was no trace of him when Wirt looked down into the dark watery depths.

"Oh no..." Norman groaned, but almost immediately, he was moving away from the edge of the boat, over to the paddles. "Wirt, we need to stop the boat."

"Huh?"

"So Dipper can get back! Come on!"

Oh. Good point. Without any further arguing, Wirt followed Norman's lead, quickly grabbing the other oar and using it to paddle against the current. But it was just as he feared: the current was far stronger than they were in their exhausted forms. It played them like a toy, forcing them back down the river. Eventually, they gave up doing that, and tried hooking their paddles in the rock walls to stop their progress. And it worked... for now. The paddles were brittle at best; they wouldn't hold for long...

Norman leaned over the side of the boat, scanning as far as their three candles could reach. But again, they were disappointed; Dipper was nowhere to be seen.

Wirt nervously looked through the water, and then back at their paddles. It made him nervous to hold them, as they were going to snap at any moment, but he was more afraid of letting go. His fingers, burned from the candle wax, ached as he held on tightly. It heard so bad... where was Dipper? If Wirt and Norman couldn't paddle up the current, how could Dipper?! Where did he go?!

Suddenly, a million things happened at once. Something exploded in the water to the left of the, showering them in painfully cold water as the boat bobbed up and down in the water, and their paddles snapped. Something sharp whipped by Wirt's face, cutting him as the tiny rowboat lurched forward, putting out the candles and following the current through the tunnels. It felt like the worst rollercoaster Wirt had ever been in, and for a minute, Wirt thought he could hear thunder before he realized that was just the boat smashing into the walls.

The boat was moving way too fast for Wirt to understand what was happening, so he shut his eyes tightly, clutching the side of the boat like that would somehow protect him... but that was almost worse. It felt like the boat was spinning in circles, around and around, and that along with his own screaming was giving him a headache. What... was going on?!

Eventually, finally, the boat started slowing down, but it was only after it was once again moving at a snail's pace that Wirt forced open his eyes and untightened his fingers. They hurt worse than ever, and when Wirt forced them from the sides of the boat, they were covered in dark liquid. Wirt didn't look at them too closely.

"Is..." Wirt heard Dipper's voice in the darkness before it suddenly went quiet again, and were instead replaced with retching sounds. When he finished, Dipper tried again. His voice was shaky. "Is... Is everyone here?"

"Dipper?" A different voice, Norman's voice, came through, and Wirt remembered that the last time he saw Dipper was when he'd dived into the water and disappeared. "You're here? You're alright?"

"I managed to grab onto the boat before it... you know," Dipper told them. "Wirt, are you here?"

It took a minute for Wirt to find his voice. "Y-Yeah, I'm here. I think some of my fingers are broken. If they're even still here."

"What?!" Dipper cried. "Okay, hold on a minute."

After some shuffling around, a light suddenly lit up the cave, and Wirt was able to see Dipper and Norman's concerned faces peering down at him, because sometime during that wild ride he had somehow ended up on the floor again.

"Which hand is broken, Wirt?" Norman asked, and Wirt shrugged.

"Both."

Dipper and Norman exchanged a glance.

"Hold up your hands, then," Dipper ordered him, and Wirt did so, raising his hands to the light.

Norman and Dipper sucked in twin breaths.

"Oh god," Norman breathed. Dipper looked horrified.

"Oh... Wirt, I don't..." Dipper trailed off, unsure of what to say.

Wirt, on the other hand, didn't know what to say. He was staring at his hands in horror, his hands that were covered in blood, with his pointer and ring finger of his left hand missing, and on his right, the bloodied bone sticking out of his thumb, ring finger, and pinky. In the red of red, Wirt couldn't even see his skin anymore, all he could see was the purple of broken bones. His hands were a horrible mess and Wirt couldn't stop looking at them.

Neither could Dipper and Norman either, by the look of it, until Dipper finally drew away, shaking his head.

"We've got to-do we have any medical supplies?" he asked, and his voice let Norman draw his eyes away as well.

"No..." Norman answered. "But we've got to make do anyway."

Norman opened his bag, and drew out a soaking wet white t-shirt. No matter how much Norman tried to shake it out, it didn't seem to do anything. It didn't look like it would ever be dry now.

"It probably would be better dry..." Norman noted, wincing. "But it'll be fine. Wirt, I just... just give me your hands."

Wirt didn't move. He couldn't look away. The more he looked, the worse it became, but he couldn't look away.

"Wirt," Norman tried again, but again, Wirt didn't move, so Norman gently took his wrist, making sure to avoid his hands. Norman brought his hand closer to himself, and started gently wrapping him but. But no matter how softly or gently he did it, it wouldn't matter. Somehow, Wirt couldn't feel a thing.

"Hey, Wirt..." Dipper eventually said, probably in an effort to distract him. "Uh, I found the crystals, by the way."

Wirt didn't reply. After a second, Dipper continued.

"I don't know if they work yet," Dipper told him. "I didn't get a chance to try it. I guess I should, right?"

Again, nothing. Instead, Norman responded this time.

"How many crystals did you manage to get?" Norman asked him, and Dipper looked proud.

"A pretty good amount," he replied. "I just grabbed onto crystals embedded into the rock, and pulled, but they were stuck pretty good. At first, I thought I wouldn't be able to get any, and I kind of panicked, but then I got that kind of desperate strength, and got two handfuls, almost. And dumped them in the boat before it went all wild."

"Really?" Norman looked impressed.

"Yeah, and I just dropped them onto the boat..." Dipper trailed off as he looked around the boat. Norman glanced to him, and his face fell.

"No... do you mean-?" Norman started, but Dipper only shook his head with a knowing smile that he quickly tried to erase.

"No, no, it's fine," he assured Norman, who sighed in relief before starting on Wirt's other hand. The right one was covered in the cloth like a cast. Wirt couldn't move his fingers. He wasn't sure if he wanted to.

Meanwhile, Dipper took something out of his pocket. A handful of crystals, Wirt realized. Dipper tried to look a little guilty.

"A put some in the boat, but I also put some in my pocket," he explained, but he stopped himself before he could go any further. Instead, he looked around, frowning. "I don't see Adam or Ash yet, so I don't think they work..."

"Oh," Norman sounded disappointed. "So all that was for nothing?"

Dipper cast a glance at Wirt's newly bandaged hands. "No. I don't think they work yet. I have an idea. Um... do your hands hurt, Wirt?"

Finally, Wirt found his voice. "...No. I can't feel them."

"Oh." Dipper grimaced. "You're in shock. Maybe you'll feel them later..."

Dipper trailed off at Wirt's face. "Never mind. Hold this."

Wirt held out his hands together, and Dipper placed the crystal carefully on them.

"Alright," he said, giving one to Norman, too."They don't work right now, but they will. All we need to do isask for permission."