Jin tilts her head, looking between Oak and Sage. Oak has been standing stony faced with his arms crossed, and Sage the opposite, bouncing around and gesticulating wildly with her proposal.

“So, to get this straight, you want me to flex my status as a cleric to get both you and Oak into the ranks of inquisitors. And then, you want me to use that same status to get Oak combat training without having to join the militia. Right?”

Sage beams and nods. “Yep! That’s about right!”

Jin considers this. “Can I do that?”

Sage pauses, her expression slipping slightly before smiling harder than before. “No idea! But it’s a good idea to try and find out right? Can you please?”

“…Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”

Suddenly Sage squeals and pulls Jin into a spinning hug, much to the mage’s displeasure. She grunts, but tentatively returns the hug, pulling away after a moment. Jin glances over at Oak, whose expression hardly changed during the conversation.

“What do you think about Sage’s plan, Oak?”

He glances over at his sister who gives him a significant look. He sighs. “It’s… an idea.”

“That tells me nothing.”

He offers her a lopsided smile. “It doesn’t.”

Jin glares halfheartedly. “Why are you and Sage being cryptic towards me all of the sudden.”

Sage giggles and gives her another quick hug for some reason. “Thank you thank you thank you!”

Jin tries a smile and pushes the girl away after a moment. “Alright…”

Damn, when was the last time she was hugged? Before Sage, anyway. Jin frowns, not quite able to remember. Regardless she might have to set harder boundaries for the girl. Sage’s concept of personal space is… Possibly nonexistent.

Sage hops up onto a table and starts swinging her feet. “So how was your meeting with Librarian Mirriam? Did you get all that information you wanted?”

Jin’s expression darkens. “…Partially. I’ve been gone for 250 years.”

Sage gives a low whistle and Oak’s eyes widen. Oh, that’s right, he still doesn’t know anything. Still frowning, Jin grabs a chair and sits at the table Sage is sitting on.

“I was a student before an experiment of mine… Failed. The hourglass I’m sure Sage told you about kept me in some type of stasis for the past 250 years. All this—” Jin gestures vaguely around herself. “—is new to me. Even the forest looks different.”

Oak nods slowly. “I figured you were there for a while, but I never thought…” He looks thoughtful. Sage grins. “Well! I guess we’ll be traveling together here soon, so you can tell us all kinds of stories from the past!” She clasps her hands together. “This is exciting!”

“Mm.” Jin doesn’t think she agrees.

Sage changes the topic. “What do you think of Librarian Mirriam?” She studies Jin’s face with blatant curiosity. Jin scowls. “I wouldn’t be upset if I never saw her again.”

This gets a laugh from Sage and a knowing grin from Oak.

Sage hops off the table again. “Alrighty! Enough about librarians! Do you want to continue the tour of our village now? Oh! It’s almost lunch, why don’t we get food and then continue? OR! Instead of a village tour, let’s take an orchard tour! And we can eat pommen fruit for lunch~” Sage twirls for emphasis.

Jin glances down at the village and its surrounding orchards. She is curious what the raw fruit tastes like. Sounds better than wandering around the village more anyway. She shrugs. “The orchard idea is fine with me. I’m not sure I can be satiated with only fruit, though.”

Oak clears his throat. “I’ll go back home. Momma wants me to reinforce the first floor window shutters.”

“Okie dokie!” Sage skips off ahead of both of them for a few paces, then backtracks and wraps Oak into another hug and mumbles. “I really hate you today.” She releases and gently punches him. He gives her an affectionate smile. “I think I can live with that.”

He jumps back out of the way of another half-hearted punch.

Sage grins, then suddenly loops an arm through Jin’s and pulls her up, and out of the chair she was still sitting in. “Come on, to the orchard! Or, one of the orchards! We have a bunch actually. Or is it all one? What separates one orchard from another?”

Jin stumbles and has to do an awkward jog to keep up with Sage yanking her around. She shoots a pleading look backwards to Oak, but he just stands there with a smirk and crosses his arms. Bastard.

—

Jin holds a large, red fruit in her hands. Like she suspected when she saw them from afar, most ripe pommen fruits are around the size of her head. Fucking hell… Each tree in the orchard is overloaded with fruit. How are they able to produce so much? They’re heavier than most melons of a similar size she’s held.

To her left she sees Sage pull out a knife from… Somewhere, and stab into a fruit of her own. Juice instantaneously starts pouring from the puncture. A few quick cuts later and Sage has a wedge of the fruit cut from the main body.

The fruit’s flesh is a dark red and looks to have a similar texture to apples. It’s rind—and Jin is sure fruits have rinds—is about half an inch thick and offers ample protection to the fruit’s flesh within.

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Sage holds the wedge out to Jin, who places her own fruit on the ground and takes the wedge. Sage is already cutting out another piece for herself when Jin takes a tentative bite.

The texture is almost exactly like an apple. The flavor mostly so as well, but with a tartness… like pomegranate? And has a hint of peaches and cherries. No hint of honey though, so the flavor she remembers from the pie must have been an additive. The fruit isn’t overly sweet, either. Jin has tried genetically modified fruit before and always found them too sweet. Having never heard of a ‘pommen’ before her stasis, she guesses these must be genetically modified too.

Curious, she decides to ask Sage. “Do you know where pommens came from, before the orchard?”

“Mmm…” Sage chews and swallows a bite of her fruit. “Oria, the goddess of the harvest, gave the seeds to the church. Turns out pommens grow real well in rocky soil like ours!”

Jin huffs. “You guys always attribute everything to those gods.”

Sage shrugs. “Why shouldn’t we?”

Jin just shakes her head in response. She supposes she’s being a little unfair. In all likelihood there are people out there posing as gods, so it’s not too far of a stretch to assume one was some kind of genetic engineer..? It’s very possible, anyway. She takes another bite out of the fruit. She would have gone into genetic engineering too if she knew it could result in fruit like this. Although… She was always more focused on magic than the sciences.

The flesh remains uniform as she bites into it. Which brings up the question, “Where are the seeds?”

“Mmmm… Mhm!” Sage is munching on a slice of her own fruit, and takes her knife to the underside of the pommen where a small pale brown protrusion sticks out. She wiggles the knife around to pop it out, and holds it out to Jin.

Jin almost unwillingly takes the slightly dripping lump and inspects it. Dozens of hard black seeds are clumped together where the lump was within the fruit. She doubles down on her genetic modification theory - seeds so out of the way of main fruit like this has to be designed. Well, not necessarily, but it’s at least far more likely.

Sage keeps chewing on her own pommen wedge and gets a thoughtful look on her face that morphs into a toothy grin. She quickly swallows and clears her throat. “Actually, I have a better idea than an orchard tour!”

Jin isn’t sure if she should be worried.

—

“How far away are we? We’ve been walking for almost an hour now,” Jin looks up at the sky and glares at the rings while munching on the last of her bread. She’s… not actually any good at gauging the time based on the sun’s position. Or in general. She misses her earring that would always keep track of the time.

Sage giggles. “It’s only been thirty minutes tops! We’re almost there.”

Jin sighs, and shifts position on her miracle chair yet again. It’s at least more comfortable with mystery painkillers in you. She’ll have to ask Rosemary what she puts in those cookies. She pops the last of the loaf they got from the bakery in her mouth. She’s not exactly in the mood for exploration but… It’s keeping her mind occupied.

Like Sage said, it’s only a minute longer when the next bend in the trail reveals their destination.

Pale grey stone forms ruined walls of a few buildings. Plant life has taken over far more here than in the remains of her city. Trees can even be seen growing within buildings tall enough to cast shade on the surrounding trails. Unlike Jin’s city, not a single one of these buildings has all its walls intact, nor roofs. She’s not sure if it’s because they’re older, or just more thoroughly surrounded by the forces of nature.

“I thought there would be more.” The mage muses out loud. Sage grins at her. “Oh don’t worry! There’s plenty more than this. These are just the first I found as a kid. Oak and I explored them pretty thoroughly, the real fun ones are further in!”

Jin had just dispelled her chair when Sage started talking, and now wonders if she should bring it back. Eh… She starts putting the spell structure back together. “…How far away are they?”

Sage laughs brightly and starts skipping towards the hills towering on the north side of the ruins. Jin sighs and starts forming her spell again when Sage suddenly stops and spins to face Jin with her arms up and out.

“Right here!”

Jin cancels the spell and looks behind Sage, but just sees a vine covered hill. Sage isn’t referring to the rock rubble at the base of the hill, is she? Channeling magic into her eyes doesn’t reveal an illusion, either. She gives the excitable girl a dubious look. “Right where?”

Sage grins and takes two steps back, holding her hands behind her. Then without turning around, she grasps handfuls of the vines and pulls them aside, revealing not an earthen mound, but empty space behind them. She holds her free hand up and shakes it. “Tada~!” Jin’s eyebrows rise.

“Oh, huh.”

Sage pouts. “What, that’s it? Aw…” She looks into the opening then back at the other girl, “I expect a better response from you inside!” She throws her nose up in the air haughtily. Then, because she’s incapable of being serious for more than a moment, starts giggling at her own antics. “Just kidding! Come on, don’t just stand there staring at me! The cave is way more interesting I promise.”

Jin sighs but a smile twitches at the corner of her lips when Sage isn’t looking. By the time she makes it to the entrance of the cave she already has a light spell floating in front of her.

Then Jin freezes.

This is an entry hall. A twenty foot wide entry hall. A twenty foot wide entry hall with dwarven fucking runes etched into the walls.

“What the fuck,” she breathes out, her feet taking her deeper into the hall of their own accord. Sage drops the vines behind them, cutting off the light from the outside. Then she strolls up beside the awestruck mage brimming with satisfaction. “Now that’s the slack jawed kinda response I was looking for! Come on, let’s—Oh wait! Are these words? Can you read them?!”

Sage gestures wildly towards the runes on the wall ten feet above their heads. Jin starts to nod, but shakes her head. “It’s dwarvish…”

The curly haired girl’s eyes sparkle with excitement. She holds her tongue though, hoping Jin will do that thing where she explains some new exciting part of history Sage would have never thought to ask about.

Jin steps further into the hall, and rests her hand on a pillar carved out of the surrounding rock. Her fingers brush over runes etched deep into the stone, as if she could feel the meaning beneath. She furrows her brows. “There’s no way these are real dwarven ruins. Someone must have… have recreated some. I know for a damn fact there’s no entrance to any dwarven ruins this far west, I would have known if there were.” She feels less confident in her declaration than she sounds.

Sage blinks owlishly. “Dwarven..?”

Jin glances at Sage, then further down the hall where the extent of her singular orb of light on the floor but not the walls; likely stairs deeper into the earth. She has an unusual intensity to her. “I want to see more. How large is this place?”

A grin returns to the freckled girl’s face and she says her next words in a sing-song voice. “You won’t believe me till you see it~” She laughs and skips backwards down the hall for a few paces before spinning on one foot right before she reaches the stairs down.

Jin takes a shaky breath in, and out. If these are really dwarvish tunnels… No, they can’t be. She takes a look back at the vines leading to the ruins outside. People obviously know about this place, or, knew. New dwarven ruins would be the talk of the century, people wouldn’t just… Not talk about them. Right?

Then, she follows Sage deeper into the tunnels to see what mystery awaits her.