Ravena had gathered them all in her room at the crack of dawn. “We’re not taking the ordnance map. We’re doing one better.”

She produced a small eyeglass shaped thing, similar to a kaleidoscope Brand had played with as a child.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Tommen, impressed.

“What is it?” asked Rosie. Brand also wanted to know.

“A minimap,” said Ravena.

“Woah. How did you get that?” asked Brand. A minimap was a very useful thing. It was an interactive map of a place that updated the user's HUD to show a small map in the bottom corner. Every time a user looked through the minimap it would update their location on the small map in the corner of their vision. They were rarely used; they cost a lot to make and didn’t have a huge amount of versatility as they only covered a small amount of Excoria. Only the higher level adventurers made the most out of them, really.

“We have a few of them back at the College. They’re quite useful. Rosie, why don’t you have a look through and tell me why?” said Ravena.

“Me? Sure,” said Rosie, taking the kaleidoscope-like object and peering through. She took her eye off and blinked, looking around. “Woah, this is weird. Takes some getting used to.” She blinked one eye and then the other, then rubbed her eyes. She stopped for a second with a look on her face as if she was concentrating. “We’re… in the middle of a forest? Is this broken?”

“It’s not broken. It’s working exactly as it should. But it’s showing a forest where we know there’s buildings. Why is that?” Ravena smiled. Brand had some ideas but Tommen beat him to it.

“Because the minimap was recorded before Quartz Creek was built.” Guessed Tommen.

“Bang on,” said Ravena. “We’ll be using this as it has a good survey of the old Rowenscamp Ruins. So it’s actually not useful at all for telling us where things actually are but as far as where things should be this is as good as it gets. It’s a copy of an older one we have, we can’t let the original out, but these old maps do make searching for ruins rather easier. It’s mostly what I went back to get.”

“Woah!” said Rosie. “This is so cool! I’m going to use this all over town.”

“We can take the scenic route,” laughed Ravena. “That’s the good thing about starting early. We’ll basically be following the river for quite a while, so that should cover a lot of the town anyway. Why don’t you all have a look, and we’ll get going.”

Rosie handed the kaleidoscope-like thing to Brand and he looked through. A kaleidoscope was actually a decent description for it. It was a large map of the area around him that was nominally 2D but split into countless fractals. As he moved his eye around different parts of the map gained depth. It wasn’t quite 3D but… 2.5D? It was a really odd experience and he couldn’t quite tell what he was looking at, save that there was a river and some sparse forest… possibly some ruins in there if he followed the river? It was hard to isolate a single fractal and if he moved slightly then the fractals seemed to race around his vision.

He took the kaleidoscope down and blinked like Rosie had. Interesting! There was now a little version of the map, very zoomed in and around his current location, detailing the things around him. He looked around and it stayed in his HUD. It was strange to have something permanently there. Usually it just told him how many BITs and how much EXP he got. It was odd, but he felt like he could dismiss it and bring it back if he wanted. Just like flexing a mental muscle.

Rosie was right, they were basically just surrounded by trees with the occasional clearing popping up around them. It was pretty interesting to see what the Quartz Creek of centuries past looked like. He wondered what made them choose this spot in particular for a new village colony. It didn’t seem particularly special. The creek running through it was nice, but why this part of the creek? Something he’d probably never know. It just made the whole experience of looking back into the past more visceral for him.

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Tommen looked through the kaleidoscope now and reacted in much the same way as the other two, a bit like a cat clumsily trying to get something off its face that it couldn’t remove. It was a somewhat jarring thing having a spot in your vision permanently covered by something, especially a little minimap that you could actually read.

The four got moving. Rosie kept a hold of the minimap kaleidoscope and occasionally squealed out loud about various things. “The old amphitheater used to be a big clearing!”, “the creek was so much bigger! And had a big bend here!” and similar things. Brand found it very wholesome to listen to, but it made him miss home. He wondered if there were any repositories containing old minimaps of Cabletown? It would have been fun. But he was happy just to listen to Rosie go on.

They travelled through Quartz Creek by river, a way that Brand hadn’t been before. It was a beautiful walk through the decaying town and he really got to see the emptiness of the place. Much like Cabletown, Quartz Creek just had neighbourhoods and neighbourhoods full of empty houses. They eventually reached a wall surrounding the town.

“Alright, we’re going to have to climb this. Easiest way over, you’re alright with that aren’t you?” asked Ravena. Rosie looked at the two boys, who looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Couldn’t stop us if you wanted to.” Remarked Tommen. Brand laughed.

“We’re old hands at this,” said Brand. The wall wasn’t anywhere near as big at the one back at Cabletown. It was about ten or eleven feet high.

“I’ll boost, then you guys help me up?” said Tommen.

“Well that’s very polite of you,” said Ravena. “Go on then.”

Tommen got in position with his back against the wall and his hands cupped, ready to launch the others up the wall behind him. Ravena took a short run up and bounded off his hands. He threw her up, but she showed off her athleticism. She soared up onto the wall and landed on it daintily with both feet.

Rosie was next and she didn’t show off quite the same skill. She put her strength on display though, as she was set to go straight over the wall until Ravena grabbed her. Brand was next.

“Just like old times, eh?” said Tommen.

“It was like, a few weeks ago,” laughed Brand. He ran up next and Tommen boosted him. He grabbed out for the lip of the wall as it approached him and he swung himself up with the easy momentum of the jump. He sat down on top of the wall with a leg on either side and one hand grabbing the lip, then leaned towards Tommen. Tommen did a run up and managed to run up the wall for a few steps before coming into contact with Brand’s hand. They grasped each other and Brand helped him up the last bit. They jumped off the other side into the tall grass and continued following the small creek, still shining beautifully. In the shade of the trees it lost some of its blinding aspect, but none of its lustre.

They encountered several Databeasts on the way to the Rowenscamp ruins, which parted from the river only briefly. The Databeasts were generally what they had encountered before; Thunderkiwi, Twizard, Authorn and a Speron. They were easily defeated in their multitudes, but they still felt more difficult than other ones they had fought. None of the Databeasts had reached the Emergent stage, but Brand suspected they were close. The amount of EXP and BITs he had received were high, even though they’d been split four ways. Eventually they got to their destination.

Rowenscamp itself was a bit of a disappointment to Brand, honestly. He’d expected something with a bit more grandiosity. There wasn’t really much there. Nine large stones were arranged in a circle with a central pillar reaching high up. Ravena called it a megalithic imitation and said similar things were made in the old world. The central stone pillar was fairly impressive, being around ten metres tall. The area was idyllic and lush surrounding the stones; Brand just wasn’t sure what they were really supposed to be doing there.

He took a look through the minimap kaleidoscope, which updated the map in his HUD. Sure enough, the megalithic imitation ruins were there. There was supposedly a road leading off from them on the map, but all that he could see was forest.

“Now I’ve been here before, but Renscamp should be so much bigger. With the map, we should be able to figure out the actual size of it, get the lay of the land and see what the surrounding structures are used for-”

“What kind of Databeast is that?” asked Rosie, looking upwards.

Staring down at them atop the central stone pillar was indeed a Databeast. It was a big ball of yellow, black and silver. Two translucent wings stuck out from either side of it. It was an enormous bumblebee about the size of a dog. Its two back legs and its stinger were entirely mechanical, as were parts of its face. It looked down at them, but didn’t appear to be aggressive. That alone was rare for a Databeast. Brand had never seen one looking like this. He looked at Ravena.

“I don’t know. That’s rare. What type of Databeast are you, little one?” asked Ravena. She readied her bow.

It turned around and waved its bum in a dance at them, and then spun back around and looked at them expectantly.

Ravena lowered her bow and looked at them confused, then looked back up at the bumblebee Databeast and spoke one word aloud. “What?”