It took nearly two hours for us to get from Amersfort to the Speedstop and upon arrival, I realized Liza had massively understated the impressiveness of the location by comparing it to the first one we’d visited. Most Speedstops were small with only a few restaurants, an inn, and enough for space for a couple of hundred animals to rest. The original Speedstop I’d visited was well over triple the size of a normal one. It had more than just food vendors with many more restaurants and inns, while also including a few rides for people to enjoy. The Speedstop we now arrived at was similar in size, though little else.
There were still plenty of restaurants interspersed throughout the space, though lodging accommodations were completely absent. The main purpose of the facility was clear, the entire place had been built for one thing and one thing only, the rides. Even before arriving I could spot metal towers that shot into the sky and thin rail lines that looped themselves nearly 30 meters in the air. I felt my excitement build as I looked at, and questioned Liza about, everything I saw. As they finally came to a stop I nearly ran out of the carriage, not wanting to waste a minute of the time we had.
The time we spent at the Speedstop was easily the most enjoyable of my life up until that point. Leonard and Kevin had opted to stay with the cart as usual, though Yoojin switched with Rick as she claimed she felt like she hadn’t been carrying her weight lately. Rick just smiled at her when she spoke, likely suspecting, like I did, that she just wanted to get on the rides.
I hadn't eaten that yet besides a brief bite on the road, so our first stop was for food, or rather snacks, as the sugar covered fried dough sticks were delicious, but far from filling. After that we fell into a pattern, it was midday and the “park”, as the workers referred to it, was rather crowded. Rather than spend all our time waiting in line for rides, Taeho came up with the idea that one person would wait at each ride, while Liza and I roamed the place and ate. The ride’s had pretty accurate wait timers making it easy to know when to be where. I felt a bit bad about making everyone else wait, while I just had fun, but no one seemed to mind.
Eventually, our group had rotated so much we were all full and had been on most of the more interesting attractions, though my favorite had been one of the last ones we visited. A ride called “Max Rotational Velocity”. It consisted of multiple large bowl-shaped seats that could fit about five people. Each one would spin naturally and move across the flat platform that housed the bowls. This more standard version of the ride was rather tame, but there was an extra addition for those who wanted more excitement. In the center of each bowl was a flat circular plate that people could spin, to make their bowl spin faster.
Even though their weapons remained stowed away, the armor stopped the entire group from comfortably sitting in one “bowl,” leaving Taeho and Yoojin to find another seat, while Liza and Nicki stayed with me. Originally it was just going to be Liza and me, but Nicki had heard the other two talking about attempting to reach max velocity and had opted to ride with us. Most of the rides were made to accommodate mana users, which meant they would likely be able to handle some of the pair's Moto Core strength, Nicki clearly didn’t want to find out. I, in all my five-year-old wisdom, took that as a challenge. I couldn’t harness strength anywhere close to her stage, but with Liza’s help we could go pretty fast.
As we entered the ride and the spinning started Nicki was fine. When I grabbed the plate, a wide grin on my face, she looked at me with a thin smile but didn’t say anything. After Liza grabbed the plate, her smile fell. Finally, as both of us began to put everything we had into turning the bowl as fast as possible, she frowned. Nicki sat there for another fifteen seconds, our bowl’s momentum increasing with everyone, until finally she couldn’t take it and in one smooth motion she bodily jumped straight out the ride, landing somewhere outside the perimeter. I later found out Nicki had gotten so dizzy she had to stumble her way to the bathroom where all the day’s food found a new home outside her stomach.
Liza and I proceeded with the ride as we had, continuously attempting to spin the bowl faster. While I’d say we were a second in regard to most revolutions per second, we were nowhere close to first place. The tops of the seats were open, as the name “bowl” suggests, but the two spun so fast their bodies looked to be a cover, stopping anyone from seeing inside. When I found out about Nicki’s ailment, I was surprised that she could even get sick, but when I asked her about it, she just glared at me. That only made the whole thing funnier, and I couldn't help but laugh at her troubles.
As the sun started to lower in the sky, many of the people began to clear out, leaving less foot traffic, we moved on to other activities. While the spinning bowls were my favorite part of the Speedstop, the games were a close second. In a similar setup to the first Speedstop, though scaled up by many magnitudes, were lines of booths all with signs introducing their game.
I spotted everything from “Pop the Balloon,” a dart throwing game, to “Taunter’s Tank” a game where the person sitting above the water constantly yelled at and teased passersby. What surprised me were the signs that read maximum core tiers for participation. I had seen, and even missed out on a few rides because of, height or core minimums, but this was the first time being too powerful had stopped someone from playing. I supposed it made sense, these games were meant to be partly luck, Rick and Taeho even said most of them were rigged in some way, who would want a strong mana user coming in and taking all the prizes.
In the end, only I was eligible for all the booths, with Liza allowed to play a few. It was an honor system as far as we could tell, but I didn’t want to cheat by having any of the others play. In the end I had to play well over ten booths and waste five silver, but I managed to walk away with a few prizes. The first was a stuffed mana beast from that balloon popping game, it had taken seven tries, each one costing a bronze, but I managed to get the figurine in the end. It meant to resemble a Fenrir, a rare wolf-type mana beast that lived in The Expanse. Compared to the pictures I’d seen in books, they had opted to remove most of the more vicious features commonly seen in the beast depictions, turning the normally fearsome hunter into a cute and cuddly wolf, I loved it.
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The second prize were a pair of black and white fish, to which I was ecstatic upon receiving. The little creatures weren’t mana beast, just normal fish half the size of my hand, but they were perfect. I had never owned a pet and seeing Liza didn’t have any objections, I couldn’t wait to raise them. The booth operator tried to sell us some materials to take care of the animals after passing them to us in a little bag, but even I could see the prices were unreasonable. Instead, we decided to make our way towards a general store near the carriages. Luckily they had a few simple items we could use to take care of the fish until we reached Storia at only a quarter the operator's price. Unfortunately, tragedy struck as we made our way back to the others.
While the bag had been fine for holding the fish, the cold ended up being too much for the newly named Shi, leaving only his brother by the time we reached the carriage.
The fish had been fine up until we left the store, however, when I went to transfer the fish to their new larger bowl, Su was the only one swimming, Shi floating lifeless at the top. It would be an understatement to say I didn’t take it well. I was distressed, frantically asking for someone to find a healer, and while Liza, Leonard, and Rick tried to calm me down Nicki began to laugh. There was an irony I couldn’t recognize in her laughter, and I ended up stomping into my carriage after the dead fish was removed. Sitting down to cry while hugging the bowl of my lone fish, the covering the only thing from stopping my tears from adding to the water.
It took an hour on the road for us to reach the inn we spent the night at, and Liza left me alone the entire ride. Dinner consisted of leftovers from Liza storage, and we went to our rooms for the night soon after, most of us tired from the long day. Nicki and I didn’t do any exploration that night since the inn was basically in the middle of nowhere, though I wasn’t quite sure if I forgave her yet.
On the road the next day we decided to take our first break early as we passed a sign that read “Weather’s Worth Inn, For Sale.” The post was followed by, in smaller text, a set of instructions on how to reach the slightly out of the way building. I remembered it had been one of the main reason Leonard and Rick had joined us and pointed it out to Liza. At the speed we were moving she almost missed it but managed to inform everyone about the detour before we passed the exit.
Reaching the snowed in inn was a challenge, but we managed easily enough, unfortunately the two feet of snow that blocked the entrance needed to be shoveled before anyone could get inside and surprisingly, they let me help. Well, help would be the wrong word, everyone allowed me to play in the snow for the five minutes it took them to shovel the entire perimeter. Menial labor done Rick walked up and knocked on the door. It took three sets of knocks and nearly ten minutes for the door to open, and everyone was surprised when it did.
A boy likely younger than me, bundled up in a coat much too big for him had managed to unlock the door and the shock on his face as he looked at our group was almost comical. He seemed to have stood on a pot to reach the knob as it was a few inches too high for him, and the door bumped into it as he pulled causing him to lose his balance. Rick dashed forward, his movements faster than anything I’d seen before, grabbing the boy before his feet were even off the pot.
“Hey kid, you alright there?” The thin guard asked, Flanter accent prominent in his voice.
The boy nodded slowly, staring at Rick in awe, much like I was. Asking the boy a few more questions we made our way into the inn. The boy’s name was Andel and the sign had been put up by his grandfather a few months ago. His parents, who’d originally owned the inn, had died in an adventuring accident almost a year back, leaving his grandfather the only family he had. Andel had been staying with him at the time though the older man had moved to the inn during the spring hoping he’d find someone to sell it too before the winter.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t worked out as few people seemed interested in the out-of-the-way inn. He had been prepared for him and Andel to head back up to his home for the winter but got too sick to leave right before the first storm hit. That had been nearly two weeks ago, and they had been stuck inside since. The pair had enough food to last them as long as they needed thanks to a storage device Andel’s parent had splurged on. Unfortunately, his grandfather was still sick which meant he couldn't shovel the snow and get the out, even during the constant storms’ respites. They’d even lost their horses to the cold, as no one could move them in time.
As the older man told the story Liza had looked at me multiple times, likely making sure I was okay. The story was sad and one of the first I’d heard from a primary source, but I took it in stride. Even going up to talk to the boy before I went back to the carriages. He was obviously sad about what happened, even with the time he’d had to deal with it and I had Liza take two of the puzzles out of her storage to give to him. It took a few minutes, but I explained to him about how to solve the puzzles, and when Liza wasn’t listening, I told him my suspicions about the puzzles being slightly magical. By the end we were both grinning, our shared secret seeming to have lessened his sadness for the moment. I couldn't imagine losing my parents and I wanted to give him something, even if it didn't help much.
Rick and Leonard ended up purchasing the inn at a discounted price, even though it wouldn’t have been their first choice and we gave the pair a ride to a nearby city after the Zema’s few hours of rest. The older man was clearly grateful, already feeling better thanks to something Rick had given him, promising to keep in touch with the married couple. The rest of the day continued smoothly, though the general mood of the party had decreased after hearing Andel and his grandfather’s story.
I spend the rest of the day doing as I had with much of my free time in the carriage. The majority was spent messing with the disk as I thought I could feel my string's independent connections growing more stable by the attempt. When I was low on mana or needed to give my concentration a rest, I switched to practicing Galog. While my accent hadn't improved in the short time, I was continuously reading and attempting to learn new words, my interaction with the stall owner reigniting my drive to learn the language. The puzzles were what I spent the least of my time doing, as whenever I stopped studying, I just wanted to go back to practicing the disk. The day followed that simple pattern until we reached our final night on the road before reaching Storia.
After the detour to the park-like Speedstop it would take us nearly another full day to reach the city, but I smiled as I laid in bed. Tomorrow I would reach my new home for the next month, and soon new adventures awaited.