Swamped

"Again, just throwing this out here, so pardon me if there's a reason it's stupid. Could we... move one of the centers? Make them match up?"

Ember gives you a somewhat judgmental look.

"It's possible - in fact, I think it would be fairly easy to do. The problem is, it's reckless. For all we know it's set up like that as a safety feature, and messing with it could have any number of effects. That's ether we're talking about, after all. Even fire powder is safer to mess with."

"What if you put it back in the bag? That's etherically shielded," Sally suggests. "We didn't want the thing suddenly going off on our way here, after all."

"A good suggestion, except that if it's shielded, I can't manipulate the ether."

"Not directly," Sally admits, "but we do have tools for that. Dominique can't manipulate ether herself, so she's got devices to do it for her. Though, we didn't bring any with us."

"That's what I'm here for," Emilio says suddenly. "I can just run back and grab what we need."

The Protectors don't look too happy when he says that.

"I think our, um, friends here would prefer you didn't run back unescorted," you say.

Emilio groans.

"The whole reason I came along is because I'm our fastest runner. I'd prefer not to slow down if it can be helped."

Well, it's not your call whether they let him go or not, but maybe you can make some kind of offer to them.