Our detour through The Hollow Forest lost us about an hour in total. I suspected that Marla helped us by spitting us out at the King’s Road, and I wasn’t complaining. When a cannibalistic goddess in the body of a young girl offers you a favour, you accept.

Claire secured us a ride in the back of a cart by hailing down a driver and showing off a rather decadent blue and white pin in the shape of a soaring bird. The driver tipped his hat to us and ushered us into the rear of his cart. He drew the curtains and offered refreshments, which we declined. I didn’t want a hot cup of tea sloshing around every time we crunched over a rock on the road. Suspension was yet to be invented around here.

“Why didn’t you do that earlier? We walked for ages to get to Piliton’s Palace.”

“Forgot I had it,” she said simply. “Unlike you, I’ve been actively using my inventory since the first day I immersed. I’m like a squirrel with too many nuts. I can’t organise them all, so I just poke them in random trees to find them later.”

Fair enough.

When we got to the city security check, a small part of me expected to just sneak through without a worry. Unfortunately, our driver was very excited to brag about the precious cargo he was carrying.

“Aaand,” he said to the guard, “I’m carrying a Rank 4 Special Operations Commander. She is sitting with her errand boy in the back.”

Claire stifled a laugh at the ‘errand boy’ comment. I pouted and wiped a fake tear from my cheek.

Footsteps rounded the cart. Our driver continued chattering, calling over other guards who thankfully stayed at their posts. The guard assigned to our cart threw open the curtain and sized us up immediately.

“Passports.”

My tale of Jenry and Bouquisha froze in my throat. It was useless now, but it had been better prepared than our current one that the driver made for us. Claire assumed control.

“Our driver told you who I am. That’s enough.”

“I’m afraid not. Show me the pin.”

She produced it, huffing as though she was seriously insulted by being asked to do so. The guard seemed impressed, but not convinced.

“You,” he said, jabbing a wonky finger at me. “Passport.”

Claire jumped in again. “He doesn’t have one. He’s not even as much as an errand boy. Just a slave. I decided not to waste the paper on a passport or an official name.”

The guard seemed to like her style. “I couldn’t agree more. Lazy scum lie about until someone generous like yourself comes by and takes pity on them, offers them a job. Give him a good kick for me next time he misbehaves, alright?”

Claire replaced the pin in her pocket. “I’d let you have a kick at him right now if I didn’t want to make a scene. Unfortunately, he whimpers extremely loudly and begs for forgiveness every time I do it. It’s not pretty.”

The guard chuckled, gave me a look of utter distaste, then drew the curtain.

“Free to go!” he called to the driver.

We clip-clopped forward. Claire was very content with herself, and I was ashamed that the guard would believe her tall tales. I’d unequipped my chestplate, spear, shield and javelin, but I didn’t think I looked that scrappy. Especially not a whimpering, begging fool.

But the job is done. We’re in.

I parted the curtain and stood on the back of the cart as we entered the city. The main street was clean — basically a straight shot of sandstone tiles all the way to the centre — but the economic disparity was already quite clear. I could see well-trimmed hedges and manicured lilac bushes in the far distance, but the current section — aside from the main road — looked like the grungiest parts of Bill’s Yard. It wasn’t a warm welcome to the city. The people showed two emotions depending on the apparent wealth of the new entrants; the less fortunate were greeted with suspicion, but the well-dressed were glowered at with anger.

No wonder their military is so huge. Half of it is probably left at home to deal with this.

As with all places, however, some light shone through. A long, narrow restaurant with steam pouring through its windows greeted happy customers, and even happier ones left after eating their fill. The children were blissfully unaware, though somewhat gaunt around their ribs. The military presence seemed to quell fear rather than enhance it.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many buildings that looked like they could be a botanist’s, let alone the Royal Botanist’s. I had grand visions of coming into the city and having a random street sign light up with ‘Royal Botanist this way! ’ in bright letters, but so far I was out of luck.

My next thought was to do some logical thinking. Perrywort slurped up water faster than a camel on a day off, so there must be a significant body of water near the Botanist’s. With any luck, that kind of structure would show on the map.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Claire was already delving into hers, so I imagined she was having similar thoughts. The top-down view was quite basic, but there were a couple snaking lines that could’ve been aqueducts.

Or they were a sewage system. I didn’t like that it was hard to tell, and that I might be building a literally shit plan.

Ha…

At least we were inside the city. We only had a meagre ten hours to make some headway, but it was enough. We didn’t have to search every nook and cranny, just the ones big enough to be something Royal.

Because ‘Royal’ generally meant big and extravagant and obvious from the outside.

I hoped.

The cart rolled on for a long time. I got jolted around. Claire sat atop some of the softer merchandise, enthralled in her map.

“Got anything? I didn’t think there was that much to look at.”

“I’m trying to work out where our driver is taking us.” She switched to a whisper. “We’ve passed the fruit and vegetable markets, as well as the cookware and children’s toys. That’s all he has in here, but we’re still going further. I think we should bail.”

Now that I thought about it, it seemed strange. Claire’s military pin presented her to be a somewhat reliable passenger, but the driver had invited us in and not stopped to check on us since. We could’ve been pigging out on his fruit baskets, or stuffing our pockets with clackers and fireworks, but he happily kept going.

“Yeah. I don’t like this anymore. I’ll take a peek.”

I parted the curtain right at the bottom, merely swishing it to the side and letting it fall back. My rudimentary glance didn’t reveal much, but we were definitely out of the Bronx. In fact, the streets were clean, and bombastically monotone.

Militaristic.

I swung the curtain open and held it, swinging myself up to see our surrounds once again. The driver must’ve felt the disturbance, because he turned around and his eyes went wide.

“Not there yet!” he called, clearly trying to improvise a reason to keep us inside. But we hadn’t asked him to take us anywhere.

I hopped out and tailed the cart, holding open the curtain for Claire. She jumped, rolling along the thick, smooth stones.

{Asterian Soldiers} pressed in from around the cart, their spears raised.

“Just run!” Claire decided, activating an ability and sprinting to the nearest side street in a flurry.

[Dash]

I didn’t have the fancy movement skills that she had, but a [Dash] was enough to get a clear distance between myself and the pursuers. The driver had somehow recognized us, and tried to ever so quietly carry us into the open arms of the Asterian military.

Did Marla give us up? Claire’s pin? Just a savvy chauffeur?

I didn’t think Marla would do it. She appeared to operate in her own space, one where the only outside influence was named ‘Mom’.

In saying that, we’d met her for all of five minutes, right after she’d sent monsters after us for an hour or so.

Not exactly the most trustworthy type.

The version I wanted to believe was that the astute Asterian government had simply placed a bounty on anyone who presented a pin that looked like Claire’s. It was relatively simple, and implied that we still had the god-child on our side.

Regardless of how it happened, we had a lot on our plate. Claire had picked an alley with a whole selection of offshoot walkways to wander down, and I had no idea which she’d chosen. I glanced down the nearest five or so, didn’t see her, then picked a random one and prayed we’d catch up later. I could shoot her a message and reunite at a junction somewhere.

The bigger issue was the pursuit team on my tail. Despite my boosted Agility, they were catching me down the main straightaways. If I tried to turn and fight, I could use [Warrior’s Wrath], but it required me to get at least a few kills for it to be worth it. I was fine with doing the damage — I’d been forced past my apprehension for that side of B&B — but if it didn’t go well, I’d only lose valuable distance.

I settled for weaving through the alleys. A quick left. Leap over a fence. Slide under a cart. Narrowly miss a man carrying groceries. Claire was nowhere to be seen.

At last, I felt like I was too far out of range for the soldiers to catch up. They’d have to make a miraculous number of correct decisions in this maze of streets to find me. At one point, I’d ended up on a rooftop.

Good luck finding me when I’m wrapped up in someone’s washing.

I sent Claire a rendezvous message.

[Yo. You were quick. I’m at the top of a white building on the east side of the kind-of-grungy-but-not-so-grungy area. Where r u?]

[Found the Botanist. Go main street between super grungy and not-so-grungy, then follow the green carts. Be quiet.]

Claire had pulled off a miracle. I followed her orders, scurrying down from my ledge with an armful of clothing. I tossed away the brighter colours and settled on a plain black shirt and light brown pants. The NPC wouldn’t have known it, but it was a reasonable thing to see modern-day people wearing.

On the other hand, people will wear just about anything these days. Especially people like Jori Hayacker. He’d wear a bear skin in the middle of summer if it earned him a buck or two.

Claire’s instructions set me down in a quiet alley mostly occupied by the backs of buildings. A paved road led green and blue carts down a dark tunnel, where the two variants parted ways. Green went right, blue to the left.

Emphasis on the quiet, apparently. Let’s see what I can do.

I waited until the last cart in the parade passed through, then slid in behind. It smelled strange, like a mix of fertiliser and exotic herbs. I poked my nose over the top. The contents were just that.

Bang on, Claire. Bang on.

If this load wasn’t going to the Botanist, it had to be going to the largest restaurant or public garden in Asteroth.

I stuck to the back wheel, trying to look inconspicuous. Claire had gotten in, which suggested that the carts weren’t too heavily guarded. After all, thieves didn’t have much use for plants, they wanted gold and other goodies.

A message popped through from Claire.

[I see you. Just take it easy, there’s no rear-guard. You look dumb when you stalk around like that.]

I had no idea how she could see me, but I trusted her. Without having the quest herself, there was a large incentive to keep me alive. For some reason, I thought about the blacksmith’s quest, and how on earth I was going to get started with it. He’d barely given me any information at all, and even in the heart of Asteroth, I was finding no clues.

Then my cart turned right, and all my worries about Great King Gonar’s armour went away.

The structure before me was a monstrosity of glass. A dome of pure engineering arrogance. The medieval version of the Empire State Building. In a city of grime and persecuted persons, there lay a building which would pass muster in the most architecturally savvy modern cities.

This was the Royal Botanist.