Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety - Sanity Splash Damage

The air was crisp below the mountain that Port Royal was perched on (whose name I still didn't know, actually) and the road was actually pretty nice. It wasn't cobbled or anything, but hard-packed gravel with wagon wheel tracks pressed into the sides to create a bit of a hump in the middle. The sides were pooled with puddles, which was perfect!

"No no, see, there's a trick to it," I explained.

"Oh? Please, do instruct me further," Desiree replied. She eyed me very carefully as I took a slight running start, then hopped up and came crashing down feet-first into the middle of the puddle.

There was a big splash, water went everywhere and I raised my arms above me in victory. "See? The trick is to keep your feet together, like this." I stepped out of the puddle and pressed my shoes together. "It makes for a bigger, flatter surface that hits the water and splashes it harder."

"Broccoli, what are you even doing?" Amaryllis asked.

"The kind captain is instructing me on how to best handle puddles and other watery disturbances on the road," Desiree explained.

"I know, I was here for the entire conversation," Amaryllis snapped.

"It doesn't hurt anyone," I said. "I can just Clean the mud away. So it's perfect! Unless...." I gasped, hands clapping over my mouth. "Oh no, I'm so sorry Amaryllis!"

Amaryllis' eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're apologizing for, and it worries me," she said.

"Your feet aren't flat on the bottom, I didn't think about it. Did I insult you by accident? I'm sure you can still make fantastic splishes and splashes even with talons!"

Amaryllis closed her eyes while next to her Calamity cackled.

"What's the difference between a splish and a splash?" Awen asked.

"Oh, that's a fantastic question!" I said. "So, a splish is more like splish! And a splash is more like splash!" I explained with the appropriate hand gestures.

Awen nodded. "I think I see. So If I want maximum splash, I might want to make something like a plate under my boots? To have more surface area?"

"I guess so, yeah," I said as I pushed some Cleaning magic out towards Desiree, she was practising now.

Awen's eyes narrowed. "I wonder... If I put holes in these plates, then the water will be forced through the small openings allowing for a great amount of splish."

"Splish-splash science!" I declared.

"No," Amaryllis un-declared. "We are not inventing new sciences, especially not... such childish ones."

Desiree splashed into another puddle, then looked up. "Must we cease the puddle jumping then?"

Amaryllis groaned. "No, no you don't need to cease it. It's not harming anything but my peace of mind."

I smiled and walked over to give Amaryllis a hug. She looked like she needed one for putting up with us for so long.

The trip was--as all trips with friends ought to be--a lot of fun! It wasn't too long before we reached a little village some ways away, right where Amaryllis' map said it would be.

"Hello!" I called out to a grenoil waddling about in a field of hip-high cabbages. He turned our way and pushed the brim of his straw hat back to better see the lot of us. "Sorry sir! We're looking for a place to stay the night, is there anything like that nearby?"

"Hmm, we ain't got an inn," he said. "But check out the mayor's place. He'll rent out his ground floor to guests and passersby on occasion. For a few copper more he'll share a meal too! Or you can compliment his wife's garden, that'll always get you in their good graces!"

I laughed and thanked the farmer before we continued on our way. It would be nice to avoid sleeping in a tent for at least part of the trip.

As it turned out, the nice farmer was right, not that it was hard to complement Miss Mayor's garden, because it was an excellent one, actually, with rows of flowers next to a big crop of veggies of all sorts. She even picked a few ripe carrots for our meal that night after I complimented the size and colour of their leaves.

The stew that evening was worth every copper penny!

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We left early the next morning after a night spent sleeping in the mayor's living room, all of us huddled in a row with our feet pointing towards the fireplace so that our toes stayed toasty all night long.

As planned, we cut northwards,leaving the roads behind and following a route cut into the brush towards the mountainsides in the distance.

The morning was gearing up to be rather uneventful, we just had to trek through the woods for a good ways to get to the base of the hills. That was easy, the mountains were hard to miss, even when surrounded by trees.

We kept talking as we went, and I made sure everyone was involved, that way we didn't lose track of each other.

Then, an hour into our trek, Desiree stumbled across something incredible that distracted all of us pretty hard. A stick!

It wasn't just any old stick, though, it was the perfect stick.

It was about a metre long and as thick as someone-bigger-than-me's thumb. There was even a sort of curvy guard on one end where the branch had split then rejoined itself. Desiree looked as smug as a fox in a henhouse as she waved it about. "It's perfectly weighted too!"

"Whoa!" I said.

I immediately started to look for my own stick. I did find one soon enough. It had fallen some time ago, and had a cool layer of moss on one side. It was a bit longer than Desiree's stick, with a sort of t-shaped crossguard on one end.

"En garde!" I shouted before smacking Desiree's stick.

That soon devolved into a walking stick-fight, which was mostly about us aiming to hit each other's sticks rather than actually hitting each other.

"What are you even doing?" Amaryllis asked after she turned around to the sound of wood snapping against wood. "Awen, even you?"

"Awa," Awen said. She had a pair of small sticks in hand, the handle end cut off in a Y that looked very comfy to hold.

"Oh, are we sword fighting?" Calamity asked.

"We are not," Amaryllis said.

"The rules are not to hit each other, and you have to find a stick off the ground, you can't hurt the trees for it," I said with a nod.

"How about we allow people to hit you?" Amaryllis asked. There was a dangerous gleam in her eyes. "You don't have Thick Skin yet, do you?"

"Well, I mean, I don't," I allowed.

Then I got a whap across the rump and I jumped with a squeak.

"Ah! I'm sorry!" Awen said. "I thought I was helping!"

"Oh, you are!" Amaryllis replied with a smug grin. "Keep it up!"

I wasn't sure if I was making good progress towards Thick Skin but I was getting a lot of dodging practice in, and I was learning how to properly parry a stick-attack while running through a thick forest, so it wasn't all wasted.

We made it to the hillsides out past the forest a few hours before noon. Amaryllis and Calamity took some time to stare at our maps before they figured out exactly where we were, then we were off again.,

When noon did roll around, we took a small break next to a stream coming down the side of the mountain. It was a pretty deep stream, but not so wide that I couldn't step past it. The water was clear as glass and cool to the touch, so it was a nice, refreshing spot to stop at.

We found a tree next to the stream and settled down for sandwiches. Calamity got a fire going after throwing together a firepit with some stream-side rocks and soon enough we had some soup to dip our sandwiches into.

Once lunch was over, the fire was out, and our waterskins were refilled for the journey, we continued on our merry way.

We didn't stick fight as much, mostly because Calamity had joined in earlier and now I was smarting all over, so instead we played walking games, chatted about stuff that really didn't matter all that much, and enjoyed the sunlight.

"Alright," Amaryllis said eventually. She had the map out, and the papers we'd gotten from the guild. "If my calculations are right, then this is where we need to leave the mountainside and head south and west. We're going to want to form a line because finding this place might not be all that easy."

"Okay!" I said. "Keep your eyes and ears open, everyone! We've got an Explorer to find, and a cave to discover!"

***