“The desert is still a wasteland and it will remain that way for quite a while, at least until we figure out what caused it to become a wasteland in the first place.”~Councillor Tyr, head of desert reclamation.
Bernin triple checked her bags. Everything was packed and she was ready to go. It was time to go. She had an appointment with the sun-riders in about 2 hours, but it was best to get there early. They would have to check her bag for contraband, it would take even longer than normal since her bag was spatially expanded, who knows what some people could hide in there.
She was just happy she wasn’t registered as a space mage herself. A colleague of hers had taken a single trip with the sun-riders before spending a significant amount of resources into a teleportation platform. He vowed to her that it was worth every copper cent and after describing the hassle he had to go through for 4 hours, she believed him.
The sun-riders were situated at the edge of the compound. They had their own shielding bubble that was maintained by their own technicians. It wasn’t the grand undertaking that the one in the university was, but it still required constant maintenance. Making her way to the checkpoint, she lifted her bag and handed it to the attendant. They took her ticket and waved her through to the verification area. It consisted of a small area with a few benches. There was one without anyone on them so she took place there, not being interested in small talk at the moment.
It took a while, but eventually her name was called and she made her way towards the attendant, again having her identity verified and told her baggage was checked and approved. She hadn’t expected any issues, everything in her bag was perfectly legal, even the weapons.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Her tedium was short lived as when she arrived at the main hall, she found out her ride was cancelled due to a particular sandstorm. She could either wait for a full 8 hours here, or go back and go through the whole verification again, or she could wait here where everything was overpriced. Bernin swore that there wasn’t even a sandstorm, still she remained calm and decided to simply wait here. She could find a small bench and get some reading done.
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It was a full hour later that Bernin finally looked up. Most people might now enjoy reading the tax code updates, but for Bernin it was just another part of the job, a job she enjoyed. It might also be a quite boring part of the job, if she was being fully honest with herself. However, even the boring parts had to be done. She kept going back to thinking about the counsellor she was going to audit. Eventually, a thought came to her unbidden, breaking her out of her thought process. She was focussing all her energy on Gregarious, but this trip also involved checking over Haspal.
Swearing under her breath, she put away the papers and opened up his packet again. It was time to get back to his outline. She was going into this fully prepared and that involved giving Haspal as much time as she gave to Gregarious.
It was some time later when she finally got to board. She and 10 others were brought to a wide ship or blank wood. The middle had a small round counter around the mast. There were 4 employees walking around checking various pieces of equipment. She also knew that underneath there was one more floor, fully dedicated to the shield that kept the rest of the desert out. Bernin remembered the lectures and lessons on what happened to those outside of the shielding and even saw the demonstrations they did for the younger students. The flesh warping and burned skin flashed before her briefly eliciting a short shudder.
She just hoped this trip would end fast, she felt exposed even with the knowledge that there were backups for backups. It really was a very safe way to travel, but the knowledge that something could still go wrong haunted her slightly. She made her way over to the bar, maybe they had something nice and smooth that would help the journey.