When the light finally faded away, Sophia was no closer to understanding how the tunnel-conduits moved between Shards. It probably should have been frustrating, and the fact that she couldn’t repeatedly use the tunnels until they gave up their secrets was definitely annoying. That magic itself was fascinating, but the only way she could study it more was to wait long enough to be able to use a conduit again. It definitely wasn’t worth the wait.
The first thing Sophia noticed was the mana level of the area. It was quite a bit thicker than near Casterville or the part of Old Kestii they’d explored, closer to the level she was used to on Earth. It was comforting, almost like being back home. It felt strange, almost stagnant, but at least it was dense enough.
The air, however, was less comfortable. Sophia shivered as a breeze brought the salty scent of the sea to her along with more than a little chill. It probably wasn’t all that cold, but it was a cold shock after the hot muggy summer days near Casterville.
Amy confidently led the way towards the exit, but paused just before her horse would have walked through the former portal. It met the wall of a different cave smoothly, as if they were the same cave, without even a line, but Sophia knew the sand and rocks hadn’t been there before the switched shards. Nothing was; it was a blank wall.
It was anything but a blank wall now. The cave widened, then opened onto a view of a beach covered in sand with a surprisingly large number of large black rocks. If the rocks came from the sea, it had to happen only in severe storms.
The cliff that held the cave looked like it hugged the sea. It was too small to make a good harbor, but it probably meant the waves were small unless there was a gigantic storm. Above the cliff, the vegetation was orange-brown with only a hint of green.
Sophia frowned and looked down. There were orange leaves caught in the rocks in the cave, as if they’d been carried in by the sea. “Is it autumn here?”
image [https://i.imgur.com/8w1vyJI.jpeg]
“Summer is short in the Skylands,” Amy half confirmed. “It could be. I remember when I left home, it seemed like it was hot for half a year.”
“The seasons don’t always match between Shards,” Dav added. “Arryn mentioned it, back when he was talking about what we should expect in Casterville. Well, he said that Casterville and Old Kestii do have the same seasons, but the way he said it made it clear that isn’t always the case.”
Sophia gave her boyfriend a puzzled look. She didn’t remember that conversation at all. She did remember Arryn talking about Casterville a little, but nothing about the weather or the seasons. “I guess it’s good that one of us paid attention.”
“Um, yeah,” Amy agreed. She sounded a little flustered. “Ah, we should get going. This area’s supposed to be safe, but I don’t like being near the sea.”
Sophia frowned. It seemed a little cool, but the sea looked beautiful. “Why not?”
“Monsters,” Amy answered easily, her earlier awkwardness pushed aside. “They don’t usually come near land, but when there’s a storm …”
Sophia looked out in the distance. “It doesn’t look like there’s a storm.”
“Good.” Amy rode out onto the beach, then clearly took in the scenery for long enough to find a way off the beach and onto better ground. “This way. There’s no good road here; you have to get near a settlement to get a road. Well, that or find one of the old roads. They’re all over the place.”
“We have a choice of which way to go,” Amy told the others as she let her horse pick its way through the rocks that partially blocked the easiest route away from the beach. “We can either head north to the mountains, then cut east until we find a Transit Road or we can head northeast and try to hit the Road sooner. There are supposed to be a lot of old roads here, but no one could tell me what shape they’re in. They could be good or they could be destroyed by time; they’re really old.”
“Is there any reason to pick one route over the other?” Dav sounded interested. Well, Sophia knew he was more into geography than she was. It sounded like they didn’t have enough information to make a decision anyway, so whatever the others picked would be fine.
Sophia tuned out the discussion and focused on the land around her. Amy said the area was supposed to be “safe.” That meant it would be a good baseline for what Sophia should expect in the area when she was in less safe areas. She didn’t want to jump at a noise that was nothing more than a small harmless bird singing but she also didn’t want to ignore something that was important. That meant learning the area.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The cliffs near the beach were absolutely covered in short bushes. Most of them had leaves that seemed to have changed colors with the season; if they’d ever held fruit, it was long gone. There were a few birds’ nests in the bushes, but most were on the ground near the center of a bush.
That was interesting; it meant the birds were more concerned about threats from the sky than the ground for some reason. It probably meant there were some predatory birds in the area, but given the size of the nests it probably didn’t mean that there was anything that would threaten a human. She’d have to keep an eye out for Taika, but that wasn’t new.
Sophia turned her attention to the sky and noticed several large birds slowly circling high in the air. It was impossible to tell how large or how far away they were, but the way they glided in the air reminded Sophia of a hawk or an eagle. None of them seemed to pay any attention to the group on horseback as they left the beach, but Sophia was still relieved when they entered the forest.
It was surprisingly easy to move in the forest; unlike the forest near Casterville, there was very little ground cover, just trees and some fallen branches and leaves. Sophia started to enjoy the ride. She was even starting to get used to the saddle; each day hurt less than the one before it.
They passed two streams before lunch, but when it came to be time to look for a camp, there was no sign of running water. They decided to press on a little farther before making a dry camp for the night.
All too soon after they made that decision, Sophia heard a scraping noise she didn’t recognize. When she turned to look, it didn’t make sense. It took her a moment to realize that the scraping noise was a turtle rubbing the edge of its shell against a tree.
The fact that it was rubbing the bottom edge of its shell against the tree and making a mark easily two or three feet off the forest floor didn’t help. It was easily the largest turtle she’d ever seen. Turtles didn’t come in that size. They also didn’t have spikes or horns growing out of their shells that glowed a soft yellow-orange in the dimming light.
Sophia gaped a moment longer, but when the turtle started to walk towards her, she shook off her surprise. “Monster turtle! That way!”
image [https://i.imgur.com/4437j5K.jpeg]
“Stay still,” Amy whispered. “If we want to hunt it, we don’t want to get its attention first. Go for the head if you can; the rest is too well protected. I think it’s an Earth-aligned turtle, so we may have to retreat if it notices us too soon. I don’t have anything that can break through a rock shell.”
It wasn’t until Sophia heard Amy’s words and wondered why she’d whispered instead of using the mental link that she realized she’d made exactly the same mistake.
Or was it a mistake? If the others weren’t listening, they might not hear over the telepathic connection. It wasn’t like she spoke in their heads; it was more like leaving a message unless they were paying attention. Sophia tried to keep a corner of her mind on the link, but it was often easier to talk out loud. That was clearly something else they needed to practice. For now, it might be better to say something out loud if she really needed the others to know immediately.
It took a moment for Amy’s actual words to process. “You want to hunt a turtle?”
Amy nodded with a grin. “There’s a lot of meat on a turtle that big, and turtle meat’s good. Even better, it’s worth a decent amount of money. If we can get it to a Professional cook, they can cook it so that it promotes healing and increases mana regeneration. It’s not the same as alchemy, but it’s similar and everyone has to eat.” She paused, then corrected herself. “Almost everyone.”
Sophia ignored the obvious question of who didn’t have to eat. She knew it was possible to live off of natural mana; humans usually couldn’t, but while most people here were basically human it was clear that some weren’t.
The problem was practical. Raw meat could last for a while if it was properly cleaned; it had to be cooked anyway. Sophia still wanted to preserve it as quickly as possible; it tasted better when it was fresh. She frowned at the turtle. “I don’t have any way to store … no, wait. If we freeze the meat before we put it in my pack, it should stay frozen.” That was one of the benefits of the way her expanded-space backpack was made; it didn’t stop time, but it did more or less isolate everything she put inside it. Other things that were nearby might get chilled, but it would be slow. It wasn’t good for storing hot meals, since they would still get yucky and probably start growing bad things, but it did mean that hot drinks cooled slower and cold things stayed cold longer.
The only question then was if she had enough mana to manage that much meat. She was pretty sure she remembered the spellform, and if she didn’t she knew it was in one of the notebooks Ita slipped into her pack before she left home. “I should be able to freeze some of the meat. There’s a lot there, though, so I’m not sure it’ll all fit in my pack. We might have to leave some behind.”
“I can find the nearest clan,” Amy offered. “It’ll be out of our way, but I’m sure we can get them to prepare it in exchange for some of the meat. Then we won’t have to carry as much and we can have it preserved and cooked well.”
“We should find that clan anyway.” Dav’s attention was on Amy instead of the turtle. “Get local knowledge about dangers and better directions. Are you sure we shouldn’t wait until we’re closer to hunt something, though? Are things like that rare?”
Amy bit her lip and stared at the giant spiky turtle for a long moment before she reluctantly answered. “They’re not that rare. The land can only support so many, but in areas of the wildlands where the magic is heavy there are often more. I just thought this would be a good kill since it’s right here. Also, turtle soup sounds really good right now.”
“It looks like a lot of work, even after we kill it, but if you want we can get you that turtle soup.” Sophia was beginning to like the idea. She’d never really thought about using spells for food preservation, but it really ought to work. It wasn’t exactly what she expected from the adventure she wanted, but in some ways that was a good thing. Expectations were boring. “How hard will it be to get through its shield?”