Jump-touch kept thinking about the summoning spell, as they started moving again. The others had talked money for a while, discussed quests, and very carefully not mentioned Shrike's spell.
She didn't understand their attitude at all. Wasn't it better to exist, than to not exist? Loyalty was good, wasn't it?
The back of her head ached, and she just didn't understand.
Jump-touch huffed in frustration, looking at her surroundings instead. The mossy ground and wind-blasted trees near the Spur had lessened here, giving way to knee-high grass, which scraped against her legs and her new skirt as they walked. She should change.
The trees were thicker here too, taller and closer together, festooned with hanging vines of twisted wire. It reminded her of the swamp at the end of the valley, but only because she didn't have any better comparisons.
There should have been birdsong and the cries of animals, something in her gut told her, but instead, there was only silence.
"We have to be careful up ahead," Yaris warned, looking back. "There's a path, cut by one of the other teams last year, but if we stray too far in either direction then we'll end up in the plants."
She was holding at the map in her hands, and she'd been angling it this way and that as they walked, as if that might help them find their way.
"I like plants," Ollie said, and Shrike shook his head. "Not these ones you don't. The copper leeching up from the ground has turned them hard, it's like walking through a forest of knives. It's a part of the reason nobody wanted to take this quest, right?"
He looked to Eim for confirmation, who nodded, tilting his head. "Basically? Also nobody wanted to take it because it's real fucking heavy."
"Do we even know what it is?" Ollie reached out to touch a leaf, before retreating quickly, fingers bloody. "Damn, these things are sharp."
"We told you," Eim rolled his eyes. "I'm not wasting my healing on that."
"I never asked you to," Ollie responded finger in mouth. "Imphine."
"It's either supplies or machinery, from the Capital," Yaris said from up ahead. "Somebody wants it here, so we'll put it here. Harmony said the spot is already prepared."
She gave up on the map, folding it up into a small square and stuffing it into her pocket.
That was good, Jump-touch was going to have to be careful not to drop it on anyone's feet. The thought had been with her the whole time she'd been carrying it, a tiny worry which wouldn't go away. Stubbing your toe really hurt, how bad would it be to have a giant box dropped on top of you? Pretty bad! That was how bad it would be!
She'd be glad when the thing was gone. Sending it to her Heart had almost made her black out, and she'd demanded two more breakfasts afterwards for the effort. Eim had demanded Harmony pay too, so it wasn't coming out of her 'cut' either!
As they entered the jungle, Jump-touch yawned. None of the plants here were interesting or edible, and they hadn't come across any monsters. She was having to keep her new skirt hiked up to stop the grass from damaging it, and she was, mostly, bored.
She had spent the last few hours trying to use it to fold a blanket, by mentally placing it half-over the edge of the box, and it was sort of working. With a bit of practice, she might be able to make it more consistent, and to get faster at it.
If I can move things, then why can't I fold them?
It was so arbitrary.
The path narrowed around them, the jungle closing in until the walkable area was little more than a narrow strip, weaving around and between thick, metallic trees.
The lack of birdsong, insects, or movement made it feel like walking through what she had always imagined a graveyard to be like. Still and silent. If there were ghosts here, what emotions would fuel them?
It wouldn't be anger and hatred, she considered. It would be a sort of passive silence, the sort of silence that drowns out everything else, until you forget how to speak. Until you forget how to think.
Around her, even the humans were silent, stepping carefully, with Yaris leading the way. Occasionally she slashed at an errant branch or leaf, but even that was slow, considered.
At the back, Eim had his hammer in hand, and Shrike and Ollie were in the middle with her, pressed up against her in a way which made her skin itch.
"We need to come back with a machete and clear this properly, it's getting overgrown" Yaris murmured, but nobody said anything in response.
I was going to write a dictionary.
She searched her Heart for a pen and a scrap of paper. Could she write with her mind? Within her Heart?
No, she quickly realised. She could not.
Sure she could move things, but only from one place to another, and it was like they ceased to exist in that time between. While that meant she could, in theory, write, she would have to do it by making a lot of little dots with the end of the pen.
She tried that, but only succeeded in breaking the pen and ink all over the top of the box. Whoops! Hopefully nobody would notice.
She drew the last of the air out and watched as it froze. Problem solved! Now she just had to work out how to get it out of there without it unfreezing-
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She stared at the shard of ink in her hand.
It was barely bigger than a splinter, and it was cold. So cold it made her fingers hurt for a moment, until her body heat warmed it up, and all at once it melted away.
Shrike looked over at her, then down at her hand, frowning. "Did you summon ink right out of the bottle?"
She shook her head, still voiceless under the weight of the trees, and he shrugged. "We can get some big bottles of ink for you, and a better pen. Get you started on that dictionary!"
But it would freeze and explode, wouldn't it? The water they had stored in there was fine, stored in big leather jugs, but ink came in glass bottles, she'd seen one once, back when she was apprenticed in the Lower Village.
She knew all about what happened to water when it froze.
I need two Hearts. A warm room and a cold one. One for people, and one for everything else.
She stared at the little spot of black on the palm of her hand. Maybe the Stone would give her a second room, as an upgrade. It had promised her enough space to keep a whole village alive, hadn't it? Two rooms shouldn't be too much to ask.
Shrike gave her a gentle nudge, and she shook her head at him, even as she didn't know what she meant by the gesture. She was getting stuck in her own head again!
"Is it far, to the object-place?"
He blinked at her, "the object-place?"
"Where we drop the object."
"Oh, the box. Uh, I think we've got another day or so before we reach it, but we should be out of the jungle long before then. Are you getting tired? Eim can heal you, if your legs hurt."
She certainly wasn't used to this amount of walking, but it wasn't too bad, it was just boring.
She grabbed one of the copper leaves as they walked, trying to ignore the people pressing against her as the path narrowed even further. Kobolds were bad enough, humans were worse. They smelled, and sweated, and always wanted to be touching her. They were learning she didn't like it, at least, but their instincts still seemed to always be to grab, or hug, or touch her.
She didn't like the thought of their sweat on her, either, or of their unwashed hands. Who knew where they'd been, what they'd touched?
She shuddered.
She would send herself to her Heart and back later, after everyone was asleep. Hopefully it would clean all the dirt and grime off her.
She hadn't actually had a chance to try it yet, but it should work. Her Heart told her it would work, and she believed it.
The leaf was solid in her hand, and no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't bend.
"Careful you don't cut yourself, or fall," Shrike advised from beside her, but she ignored him.
She couldn't see where they were going anyway, sandwiched in the middle of the group as she was.
A moment later the leaf was in her Heart, with only a mild jolt to send it there.
No, I wanted to leave the copper behind, she told it.
But she couldn't. It was like trying to send a book and leaving behind the ink. She might be able to get one shard, which hadn't settled yet, but the copper was a part of the leaf now. They may have been different things once, but time had made them one.
"It's interesting," Shrike spoke a little too loudly. "The plants here still grow, despite the copper. Nobody's quite sure how. Sometimes we find patches that are completely free of it, for no obvious reason. On top of that, any copper-infused plants that're taken and planted outside the dungeon either die within a few days, or grow and mutate until they become monstrous."
"Really?" Eim looked over, "there was some talk about setting up a mission for anyone who could bring one something and have it survive. Where did you hear that?"
"Read it in a book once," his cane tapped against the ground, "I had a library pass, as a kid."
"Lucky kid," from Ollie, and he glanced sideways at them.
"Somewhat. My dad wanted me to be educated, so I could take over his workshop. Didn't quite work out though, for either of us."
He sighed, "I should have taken the keyed apprentice class, it was right there."
"Hey, you're not the only one," Eim said, staring up into the canopy. "I had the option too, and I picked this stupid thing."
Ollie gave them both a look. "Some of us only got offered garbage, I'm afraid, so you two can stop whining about your super special classes now."
"Hey," Yaris turned slightly to look at them, "we'll make it work."
Ollie raised an eyebrow.
"I told them," Yaris smiled a small worried smile, "or I told Eim and Jump, at least."
Shrike looked from her to Eim.
"They want to turn a tailoring class into a combat class," Eim filled him in, "and they think you'll have ideas."
"Huh," he thought about it, and the group carried on in silence. Ollie was tense beside her, the bare skin of their arm touching Jump-touch's shoulder now and again.
She held the leaf in her hands, thinking about how her body heat warmed the copper until it felt warmer than her hands. How did that work?
She pressed it against her cheek, earning herself a look from Ollie.
"Have you-" Shrike paused, still looking ahead. "No. First, what're your skills?"
"Faster learning and Mend."
"Hmm, well we can leave the first one. But [Mend]," he considered it, "have you managed to get it working yet? You've only been classed for a week or two, right?"
"Somewhat. I know that it shows me where holes are in clothing, and that it guides my hands to fix them up, but it seems spotty, for lack of a better word."
"I wonder if it's limited to fabrics, and what counts as a fabric. Could you mend a fur? Jump, do you have anything?"
She blinked at him, still clasping the copper leaf between her palms, "what? Oh, sure."
She summoned her blanket, there was bound to be a loose stitch somewhere, and Ollie took it carefully, having to move back on the narrow path so that they trailed behind the group.
"This thing is heavy!"
"No it's not!" How dare they insult her blanket! "We made it out of rabbits!"
"Mm. But then you backed it with wool, and the weight adds up." They ran their hands over it, "nice neat stitching though."
They touched a spot where the stitching hadn't been quite neat enough, "there's a little hole here. [Mend] is telling me where it is, and how to fix it."
"Okay," Shrike said, "do you have to be touching something for it to trigger?"
They looked thoughtful as they passed the blanket back to Jump-touch, who put it back into her Heart with both a wince and a sigh of relief. There wasn't enough room here on the path for stuff like this, what if it caught on the trees and tore? Plus, if she was being honest, she didn't like having other people's hands on her stuff.
Greed, she whispered to herself.
But, she relied on that blanket to keep her warm, without it, she would be cold at night, and if the weather was cold enough, then she might die! Plus, Ollie wasn't going to damage it or steal it, in fact the opposite.
The memory of her skirt ran through her mind with a pang.
Why do you have to be like this?
"So," Shrike said, and she blinked back to attention. "It might work. We need to talk to a smith next time we're in town, and we'd need to see what you got at level two, but, and hear me out here, what if boring a hole in the end of the spear and threading some rope through it would make it count as a needle?"
Ollie stopped, staring at him, causing everyone else to stop too.
"Oi," Eim complained from where he'd been slouching at the back, but the two of them weren't listening.
"You think it might be that easy?" Ollie was wide-eyed.
"What's a needle other than a sharp thing that you use to punch thread through other things. It can't hurt to try."
Yaris looked back to the two of them, "I never even considered that, I thought maybe a crossbow or something, but…"
"You can buy bolts with fishing line attached," Eim offered. "We sell them for climbers. They get the thin line over, and then use that to pull up a stronger rope. It might even work better than a spear."
Ollie stared at them both with wide eyes, something unfocused in their gaze.
"Yaris, give me my spear."