The trip had been like a bizarre dream. From the ship (a whole new word and concept by itself), to the ocean, to the deep green of the (rather cold) plains and beautiful Soaring trees of Strovastria and the shadowed foothills beyond with their invisible whispers, all the way to the soaring spires of which he now laboriously ascended. 

Dhd

He had been looking down at his feet for the last hundred meters of the climb, panting heavily and just trying to keep focused, so he had not seen the vista as his head crested the the plateau. However, as he took the final step and both his feet stood firm on solid grasses, he looked up, and nearly passed out from the shock. 

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"THERE WAS A LIFT??!!“ Kyros shouted at Kenzo. Little Fang had been spending most of the trip of sleeping in a sling fashioned across his chest, and now let out a ROWR of displeasure as he was startled awake at the outburst. Struggling to push away Little One's indignant paws as they reached for his face, he stared daggers at the small man. 

Despite the clear difference in their physiques, Ky was panting heavily while the diminutive man stood there with a tranquil smile on his face and not a single drop of sweat on his brow. "One must walk a journey in a thousand steps before they appreciate taking it in one, no? Let us go young one, there are many more steps to walk before we reach our goal. Do not worry, we will not be scaling any more cliffs today!" he said with a warm chuckle before turning back down the path ahead of them. 

He pulled a small square of folded paper from inside his hat and unfurled it. No matter how many Ky saw it, he still couldn't figure out how it worked, even knowing it was magic. In just a few seconds, the piece of paper had unfolded once more into Kenzo's donkey, Jinsoku. The middle-age scribe still chuckled every time he introduced someone to the animal. Ky had asked him at one point why, and Kenzo had told him that it meant "swift" in his native tongue. It had to be a joke, because the magical mule was possibly the slowest and laziest creature he had ever met. 

"We have a couple more bridges to cross and then we shall reach quite a nice nearby ryokan well before nightfall. It will give us a good chance to rest our bones before we carry on. Then it will be two more nights before we reach our destination. Our next two lodgings will be much more modest, traveller's lodgings so enjoy tonight as best you can."

The sunrise was just about to disappear below the horizon by the time they arrived at the ryokan, which turned out to be a large building surrounded by fences emitting copious amounts of steam. He wasn't exactly sure what ryokan meant, but his best guess suggested it was an inn. 

Kenzo had been teaching him some of the words in his language, but he'd primarily been focused on teaching him the Talen tongue, which was apparently the primary language of this continent. To that end, Kenzo held him back before they entered. "While most at the academy will be from all corners of the world and thus will most commonly speak in the common tongue as a means of reaching common ground, the people you will meet until we get there Lilley won't have the greatest grasp on it, if any. This will help you for tonight at least. 

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With that, Kenzo pulled out a small sip of scribed parchment and held it to Ky's forehead. After he muttered a few words, Kyros could feel the telltale tingle of magic across his skin. "Now how do you feel? Nothing? Just focus on the sound of my words." A moment later, recognition dawned on Ky's face as he noticed that the words were definitely different. Kenzo had cast his “Comprehend Languages” spell on him. In the past, Kenzo had cast it on himself, and translated for Ky any time they needed to have more in-depth conversations with folks in the regions they passed through. When he had first done it, they had been trying to negotiate for passage on a Borallan merchant ship heading back northwards across the Cyrillar Ocean. 

This was the first time he'd been under the spell's influence however, and it was an odd feeling. Kenzo said the initial feeling would go away as the spell settled in, but for now it felt like he equally fully understood and was completely lost on what people were saying. As Kenzo continued to talk to him, Ky could feel the local tongue slip away from his perception and only his mother tongue remained. Apparently there wasn't even a name for it as far as Kenzo knew. At that moment, Ky decided to call it Aeadean in his mind. Hey, if no one else had named it yet, why couldn't he be the one to do it?

"Remember, once we're settled in, ask for directions to the onsen." the arcanist said before leading the way in.

It was like no dwelling he had ever seen. The ceiling was slightly lower than other buildings he'd been in on the journey, yet the layout was wide and open, with large, thick structural beams breaking up the minimalist decor. He was about to set foot on the pale yellow woven floor mats when Kenzo shot out a hand to stop him and told him to take off his boots first. In nothing but his socks, he stepped up the small ledge and onto the surprisingly soft floor. 

The rest of the night was a surreal experience. The women at front desk shared a lively chuckle after calling Kyros and Kenzo "hantaigo" (a word that then reshaped itself as "opposites"), and then bowed deeply all in unison before leading them to a well-appointed room (if minimalistically so) that was shockingly large. As he looked around it, with Kenzo already changing out of his robes behind him, he started to get the feeling that it was at least as wide as his hut back home. His home wasn’t small by any means, at least for what he needed. It did everything he wanted, and he liked it. Hells, he had made it himself with the help of Bayer and Kayode. He was just shocked that there would be an inn, a temporary resting place, with rooms as big as his actual house. Who would need so much room?

By the time he had finished looking around the room, Kenzo was already gone. He saw another one of the blue striped robes that Kenzo had been changing into folded on top of one of the thin mats and without anything else to do, he tried to put it on. He managed to wrap it around his waist, and was wholly confused with the rest of what to do. Giving up, he proceeded out the door barefoot, and walked immediately into one of the innkeepers. 

She let out a loud yelp of surprise, and immediately began to stammer at him that he was wearing his robe wrong. Waving him back into his room, she showed him how to put the robe on correctly. As it turned out, the parts he had used to tighten the robe around his waist were actually sleeves. Eventually they sorted it out, and she pointed him towards the "onsen". He only needed to ask a couple more patrons and staff to find his way to an external sliding door that radiated a warm heat. 

The onsen turned out to be a natural hotspring, and it was luxurious.