The situation wasn't all bad. I mean, fuck, it was close, but it wasn't all bad. I'd been able to check a map- and also copy it so I could take it with me- and Kotor was only about a hundred miles away from Manor Nukem. Now... okay, yes, that was far. Eurasian Steppe Nomads like the Turks and the Mongols could, on horseback, with a lot of spare horses following along, cover about sixty miles in a day, which generally was the upper limit on how fast anything could move on feet. Now, sure, Duchess Abby Van Helsing-Nukem was apparently able to cover that entire distance on foot between dawn and dusk, but it had been outright stated that she had [Physical Enhancement Level 30]. Rachel and I... didn't. We were, in fact, just about evenly tied, at [Physical Enhancement Level 12]. Her mana reserves remained slightly bigger than mine, but a bit more time would see me eclipse her, unless she managed to get her own Learning bonus like me.

Anyhow. Getting to Kotor on foot would involve us running ourselves ragged for two days on end to cross eighty miles, and then arriving in Kotor on noon of the third day, at which point, very likely, Duke and Abby would've left for Manor Nukem once more, where they would hear Eris' version of events first, and then we'd really be fucked.

"Can we intercept them on the road on their way back?" I asked.

"N-no," Rachel said, shaking her head. She'd... sort of composed herself. I mean, maybe an hour had passed since I accidentally sealed the deal on ruining her life, so this sort of composure was honestly pretty admirable. Still, she'd need a lot of time to cry tonight. "Duchess Abby covers so much distance because she leaps with every step, launching herself high into the atmosphere." These people know what an atmosphere is? ...No, stupid question, a quarter of the population have wind affinities, of course they do. "She stays up for a few minutes with each leap, and actively avoids landing near other travelers on the road. We can only speak to them if we catch them before they leave for the Manor."

"...Alright," I said, nodding. We were just outside the village, with everything we owned in our void spaces- mine was, gratifyingly, larger than Rachel's, but I'm sure if I expressed that sentiment to her, she'd say it was just because I didn't have anywhere else to put my stuff. Which was true, but still a bit of a sting to my ego. "I... have a solution."

"Another one of your machines," Rachel said. "If only you valued your social graces as much as you valued your damn machines..."

"I'm sorry my actions have contributed to this situation," I said carefully. "I shouldn't have done any of that shit I did in the Grand Hall. But..."

"But, that was a low blow," Rachel said, wiping at her eye. "I'm sorry too, my love. I am... very upset, but I shouldn't take it out on you. Not when you're trying so hard to make things right. Please, show me the machine that will solve our problems."

"So, this one is something I made mostly for fun, and to see if I could," I said. "Rebecca and I were talking about vehicles, and I'd mentioned the variety of vehicles we had back home, and that one of them could even be made by a cartwright like her in a shop with no power tools. Well... she took that as a challenge. We worked on this vehicle, got it barely working, and after a few attempts at teaching her to ride it, she gave up, laughed about it, and told me to take it and use it well, since I'm the only one on the planet who knows how to ride it. And then... well, then I made a few modifications."

"What is this vehicle, and may I please see it with my own eyes?" Rachel asked.

"Right, sorry, now isn't storytime," I said, nodding. I stepped back, closing my eyes. This was the biggest thing I'd ever put in or pulled out of my void space. It was going to take... some doing. "Right. There."

I opened my eyes, and together, Rachel and I beheld my greatest abomination. It had started life as a wooden bicycle as built by a shitty woodworker who'd last ridden a bike half her life ago and a skilled cartwright who had literally never seen a bicycle before. That bike, while something I could still- poorly and with effort- ride up and down a decently well-made village main street, was unquestionably a piece of shit. So, when I had a garbo bicycle with iron-rimmed wooden wheels given to me for free... well, even if my ensuing tinkering did make it worse, it was already worthless, and wouldn't be much of a loss.

I'd scraped up some more iron, and traded the wheels back to Rebecca for a set of wheel-less iron tires. The wheels were replaced with metal-efficient and lovingly-enchanted-for-unnatural-strength-and-durability spoked metal wheels with a big ol' channel running around the outer rim, and the iron tires were replaced with inflated rubber ones- it had surprised me to learn that they had rubber trees in the village, and that their uses for rubber were quite exceeded by the supply, letting me pick up enough to make tires out of for a song... and also knowledge of vulcanization.

I'd then replaced the fork that held the front wheel with iron tubing and a pair of big ol' springs for absorbing whatever shocks the rubber tires wouldn't absorb. And then, because I had some rubber leftover, I went ahead and made a bigger, better seat that could hold me, the rider, as well as a passenger clinging to my back, who I'd always imagined would be Rachel, just... not like this.

The most important change I made, though, was to the drive train. The original wooden bike had been made with a wooden crank set with dowels for pedals, and an iron rim around the outside to form a sprocket. From there, it was connected by chain to a sprocket of the same size- because like fuck I knew how a derailleur worked, or would risk making it unrideable even for me with a too-high or too-low gear ratio- which was in turn connected directly to the back wheel, with no ratchet. The whole arrangement was crappy and slapdash- crapdash, if you will. Which was understandable given that Rebecca Cartwright had literally made the bike as a joke, but still not something I wanted to use. So, out went the crank and the pedals entirely, and in came something that was better anyways:

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Another enchanted pneumatic engine. Did I have absolutely zero mechanical control over it? That is true, I did not. Did I have to instead basically control the throttle with my own magically-enforced will? Absolutely. But, and here is the crucial part: did this engine have the purr, the rumble, and the roar that a proper motorcycle engine should have?

Oooohhh yes baby. Yes it fucking did.

"This is a motorcycle," I said, climbing into the rubberized saddle, supported and cushioned with more springs. "These beauties were fast and nimble for the land vehicles of my day. A good biker could cross the continent from coast to coast in a matter of days with one of these. Of course, I'm not a real biker or a real mechanic, so I didn't really know what I was doing when I built this. It works, but it can barely manage a quarter of a real motorcycle's top speed." I twisted around in the saddle to grin at Rachel. "See, when I tested this baby, about a week ago, I pushed it as hard as I could, and it would only get up to twenty miles an hour."

"Twenty-" Rachel started coughing. "It's already noon, but you mean to tell me that this thing can get us to Kotor before it's even time for dinner?"

"That is precisely what I mean," I said, nodding.

"I've heard stories of horseless carriages, built by wizards, but..." Rachel shook her head. "The stories were quite clear that they weren't faster than horse-drawn carriages. This, this is something else."

"Horseless carriages, huh," I remarked. "Think I might have an inkling of how to build one of those, if I can get more materials. But, anyways, before we get going... if you've got armor of your own, put it on now. This thing is pretty stable for a self-propelled vehicle with two wheels, but I really am not a real biker, and I don't want you getting your skin torn off if I crash this thing."

"Right, right," Rachel said, nodding. "You'll have to help me with the armor, though; I only have [Void Space, Level 6], and that's not enough to re-summon things directly onto my person."

"Ah, right, right," I said, getting off the bike. Helping her into her armor was fairly straightforward, even if my boobs did get in the way of my hands once or twice. We were done in a minute, and she was putting on her helmet that looked very well-padded on the inside.

"Do you have armor?" Rachel asked, climbing into the saddle behind me, her voice muffled by her helmet.

"I'm an Archmage who hates idleness and being bored," I said, grateful for my coat's riding slit, which I'd decided on the day before Rebecca and I made the bicycle. "My clothes have more magic in them than you do. And all of that magic, all of those enchantments, are geared towards one thing: making these clothes absolutely indestructable. They're so resistant to damage, I don't even have to wash them, because getting dirty is a kind of damage."

"You're a madwoman," Rachel said, wrapping her arms around my waist. "But right now, I'm glad you're my madwoman."

"Love you too, Rach," I said. "Now hold on tight. I put a lot of work into the suspension, but this is still gonna be a rough fucking ride."

"How bad could it be?" Rachel said, before I kicked on the engine and we started to move. "Whoa. Okay, this is fast... we're getting faster... We're still getting faster?!"

"And every bump along the way is going to hit us pretty hard, if the suspension doesn't absorb it," I said, already having to raise my voice to be heard. "If I'd been smarter, I would've enchanted the tires to run on water, but I wasn't, and now we've gotta just hope Duke Nukem keeps the roads in good repair."

"...Um," Rachel said loudly, barely audible over the engine and the wind.

"That's going to be a sticking point, isn't it," I said, taking our first major turn and swerving a little to avoid a pothole.

"Like you said," Rachel said. "This is gonna be a rough fucking ride."

"Did you know, my sweet knight, my darling angel," I began, loudly. "My cherished lover, the woman I share a bed with, my snugglebuddy prime-"

"Please get on with it," Rachel said.

"Sometimes I get very sick and fucking tired of being right all the time!"

She said something I couldn't understand, because the noise had gotten loud enough to drown out everything else. I didn't respond, which hopefully let her know I couldn't hear her, and which apparently did, if the sigh and shrug I felt through my back was anything to go by.

We rode on in... well, not silence, but we definitely weren't talking, either... for a good few minutes, before finally, the noise stopped, even as we kept moving. In fact, we started going a little bit faster.

"What did you do?" I asked, at a reasonable volume for casual conversation.

"I enchanted your horrendous, noisy machine-horse with an air bubble," Rachel said. "And this way, we also don't have to deal with wind in our eyes, or tearing out our hair."

"You... enchanted it," I remarked. "Sorry, I'm just... not used to you doing much enchanting. I think I love you even more, now."

"You are the most pathetically endearing bookworm I have ever met," Rachel said. "And if it wasn't for this helmet, I would kiss you."

"Shit, I can pull over-"

"You will do no such thing until we get to Kotor," Rachel snapped.

"Shit, right, forgot why we were doing this," I said. "Alright. To Kotor."