NOVEL NEXT 1.71 – Take A Walk
Maple got up early for it. Emma, too. They exited their room before Rachel, for once, before the sun had risen at all. Maple's eyes were heavy with sleepiness, she was groggy, and—so much would happen today.
Maple's backpack held half the items Sasha had dug up for her. Maybe less. She'd really gone overboard. When Emma had returned that evening, she'd insisted on taking the fishing pole herself. She managed to fit it inside of her...somehow. Maple had no idea how, or why, but she was carrying it so that was fine.
"Oof, I wish we had coffee here."
"How about some tea? I've got the strong stuff, if you want it."
Sasha offered, and Maple wasn't sure what the 'strong stuff' meant exactly, but she accepted. They were up before Azure Bond. Sasha was too, for that matter. She handed Maple and Emma a pair of steaming mugs to match her own.
"Thanks. I'm surprised you're up already."
"Ah, well, I've gotta see you off, don't I?"
Maple shrugged, but it was kind of her. Yesterday afternoon, she'd also helped Maple send a letter to Charlotte. It'd been mildly embarrassing since that was the kind of thing children learned, but only mildly. How was she supposed to know how mail worked here?
"You sure you don't want to come with us?"
"Yeahh, I can't. Tell me about it after, though."
"We will."
Maple nodded, and then began the 30 minute groggy wait for the rest of them to get up. She went over a mental list of everything in her pack, tried to think if she was forgetting anything, and eventually resigned to zoning out half-asleep.
When Azure Bond came down, Sasha served them all a big breakfast and Maple was ready for a grueling day spent walking.
Rather than that happening right away, Sylla pulled out a map and laid it flat on the table. It had the entry points along the walls surrounding Syber marked, but mostly it was of the surrounding area with all its roads, trails, and landmarks.
"Which direction was it in, Maple? We should plan ahead a little."
"Uh, that way."
Maple extended a finger toward the location embedded in her mind. She could do it with her eyes closed. It felt like how one knew the location of their body within space, but further away. Like proprioception.
Sylla dragged her finger in a line across the map, and then tapped some of the marked trails the vector passed through.
"So we'll probably want to take this main road out, and then head to one of these."
That way, they would avoid cutting through potentially dense wilderness if they didn't have to. Thera nodded.
"Everyone ready? Let's get going."
They set a leisurely pace. Emma walked with them, a bouncy jiggle to her step. The sun was rising by time they reached the gate; the eastern one, rather than the southern one they'd entered when they first arrived in Syber. The Copper Butterfly was on the west side, so just leaving the city had already been a bit of a walk.
It was late enough for the gate to already be open. The [Guards] nodded to them on their way out. The main road after that was paved with stone, with farms resting in the clearing on either side. Some held a house in the center of their acreage, but the houses were sparse here. Unless you were a [Farmer] or such, there was little reason to forego the protection of Syber's walls.
Even then, commuting to your farm was a thing some did. You risked thieves, and depending on how far out you were, might need to start each day with a walk, but it was possible certainly.
The main road headed east, mostly, while the place they were heading was northeast. The position in Maple's head barely seemed to move in the first hour they spent walking the road. In that time, the farms became sparser and trees replaced the clearings.
Getting out of the city was nice, and Maple and Emma pointed things out to each other. Birds of many kind, cows, a farm with trees full of juicy peaches which tempted Emma to begin her bandit arc after all. She did have her cowgirl hat on, but Maple talked her out of it.
That all got old rather quick though, and Emma made a pleading face to Maple.
Carry me.
"You have your bottle, right?"
Carry me. Without it.
She amended her sentence and intensified her pleading look. She wrapped herself around Maple's body, trying to pool into her arms. Maple laughed and had to stop or she'd trip.
"You're too heavy, cutie. Go into your bottle and I'll wake you when we stop for a break, okay? Or, can you see out of it?"
Emma nodded and liked where this was going. She could still hear while inside it, too. More than that, she extruded a miniature version of her head from the top and grinned at everyone they passed going the other way, much to their bewilderment and Maple's embarrassment. Sylla was impressed by it, though.
"It seems enchanted well. Where'd you get it from, Emma?"
I'll tell you the story, give me a minute.
Emma passed the note up through her body, and held it in her mouth for Sylla to read. Maple passed the bottle to Sylla to carry for a bit. Any part of Emma outside of it had weight, hence her shrunken head, but even that was a good 10 pounds or so. Maple was relieved for the break.
It took Emma more than a minute, but then she passed up a page of text. Sylla read it while walking. They all took turns carrying and conversing with her after that.
Maple practiced sensing mana as they walked. She could just about feel her own circulating through her body without needing an injection of Sylla's. After a couple of hours of walking, they moved off the main road and onto a dirt trail.
The waypoint in the distance did seem to grow closer, she just had no sense of scale for it.
