After the handclap, the mists faded and we were back in the city again, almost as if we had never been elsewhere. But the shadows had advanced subtly, showing that time indeed had passed for us in the mists. With all the talk about guides and Fate, Desi never exactly answered why she had summoned us. Perhaps “because you’re interesting” was all the explanation we were going to get.

“Well, that was … different,” Ace said.

“Yeah. Indeed. She didn’t really explain much, did she?”

Ace shook their head, looking troubled. “Doesn’t it feel … a bit like cheating?” they asked. “She gave us something we weren’t going to get otherwise, and didn’t give that opportunity to other people.”

“A little bit,” I nodded. “But there was a price for it, too. So maybe it balances out. Other people don’t have quests and duties and obligations in exchange for getting what they weren’t going to get, either.”

Ace still looked troubled, but shrugged. “I guess. Nothing we can do about it now, anyway. I’m just glad I dodged that Nereid bullet, though. What about you?”

“I could have dealt with the race,” I admitted, “if I got a good healer class out of it. But not for an anti-healer, or whatever that Shackles of the Abyss class would have been.” I noticed them giving me a funny look, “What? You think a flying Barbie doll was high on my list of what to be? If I can deal with this, I could have dealt with that.”

“You are, like, the exact opposite of me, Rie.”

“I guess. Anyway, we were going to look for a library, weren’t we? And then maybe go see how your little golems fight? Did you do much last night?”

Ace shook their head. “I wasn’t in any hurry to have monsters hit me,” they said. “It’s not on a screen anymore.”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as you might think,” I reassured Ace. “Not pleasant, but not traumatic, either. Not much worse than a bad day in PE class. You’ll survive. Well, unless you don’t, but then you’ll respawn.”

I was about to point out that their golems were probably going to be the ones taking the hits for them, anyway, but … “Hold on a moment, I got an idea.”

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> Hey, Mikachu. In your running around the town questing so far, have you seen a library?

>> A library? No. But we did pass by some vendors selling scrolls and parchment in one of the market plazas. If anybody knows where a library might be, they should. Is the meeting over? Where are you? We can show you where to go.

> Can you send map coords? Mom and Dad are doing their own thing now, and Jazmyn went to help Ette with mining. Since you and Noa are questing, I thought I’d help Jocelyn’s character with their quest.

>> Sure. Give me a moment to figure it out.

“I was asking Mika if she knew where a library was. She doesn’t, but might have a lead,” I explained. “She’s going to send us a starting point, if it works. But while we’re waiting ….”

My hands glowed faintly green and Daybreak Gleaming leapt through a misty portal to land in the street, wooden hooves ringing against the cobblestones. She whinnied, arched her neck, and pivoted about to face us.

Ace’s eyes went wide. “You have a unicorn!?” the Amalthean exclaimed. “How is that fair!?” They reached out as if to touch her, but paused, and gave me a questioning look, “May I?”

“Of course! She likes the attention. Her name is Daybreak Gleaming.”

Ace was just as enchanted with my wooden unicorn as the rest of my friends had been. As they ran their long fingers through the moss of Daybreak Gleaming’s mane, I could almost see the young girl Jocelyn had been years ago in Ace’s expression.

Then again, I probably looked like that too, when I first saw the unicorn, so I wasn’t reading too much into that. Daybreak Gleaming was just that wondrous.

Ace was still petting and patting and fussing over the unicorn when my minimap pinged.

>> There. That should be the market plaza the vendors were in. Also, it’s a pain in the neck to extract and send coords. Think trying to pinch to zoom, right-click, WASD move, and swipe right all simultaneously.

> Yuck. Sounds difficult. Anyway, thank you.

>> Sure thing. Holler if you need anything else.

Unfortunately, the ping to the minimap had only given me direction -- the destination was outside the range it displayed. I had to pull open the full map of the city, which was just as much of a hassle to use as it had been yesterday. And … of course, the plaza was half the city away. Why was nothing ever nearby?

Granted, I flew, so getting from point A to point B wasn’t a trial. Obstacles were easy to overcome … or at least, to overfly. But Ace was on foot. Okay, almost everyone was going to be on foot, but that meant taking the long way there.

“Oi, Ace. Go ahead and hop on her back. We’ve got a bit of distance to go, and no sense getting tired walking it all.”