-=Plush POV=-

Not really feeling up to exploring the city anymore I instead head back to the clothing shop, once I get there I harden my claws and as I’m about to knock I realize something.

‘Do I even need to knock actually?’ I ask no one in particular before thinking extra loudly. ‘Hey Lizz, are you guys done yet?’

In response I first hear a small eep before Lizz starts talking.

‘Well I’m just outside the clothing shop so it’s probably not that far.’

‘Okay.’

So I sit myself down and lean at the wall next to the door, making sure I sit on the side opposite to the one the door swings to-

*SLAM*

-And seeing how hard the door was slammed into the opposite wall by Lizz after few minutes I’m very grateful I did so.

‘I hope the door didn’t break, they could probably demand reimbursement if it did.’

“Ta-da!” Shouts Lizz as she flies higher and twirls in the air, however-

“You’re too small for me to see properly if you’re so far away.” All I could see was a splotch of yellow and a splotch of blue.

“It seems her excitement is getting in the way of her hearing, either way shouldn't you focus a bit more on your girl’s clothes instead of Lizz’s? I’m not sure about half-birds, but a pickit would be furious if you did that to them.”

I look towards Shiona and see her wearing a very loose green tank top, a shade brighter than her feathers, ending a small distance above where the copper belt was, and a pair of brown baggy pants, similar to Charlie’s, albeit a lot longer to accommodate her legs which were one and a half times as long as a pickits even while half crouched.

“It looks good.’”

“Thanks.”

“By the way you two, you said you were from the same country right? Is it a thing there for everyone to wear masks or something?” Asks Lizz who has since flown down.

“Not really, I didn’t even know this was actually a mask before, I thought it was my real face.”

“Oh yeah… And you then Shiona, what about you and your mask?”

“Well… It’s a bit hard to talk about so I’ll take it as quickly as I can, when my family left the nest this weather was all that they left.”

Charlie is then surprised and asks:

“Wait, that mask is organic? And you’ve had it for almost two years by now? How the hell does that thing even exist anymore…”

“Now that you mention it that is weird, but there’s not a lot we can do about that right now is there? And was there anywhere else we needed to go before we leave?”

“What? In a hurry for some alone time?” Responds Charlie to Shiona with a mischievous smile, however the smile is replaced with a sigh when she doesn’t get a reaction. “But no, I’d say you’re all about ready to leave, here-” She says and hands Shiona a leather bag.

‘They must’ve purchase that while they were waiting for the clothes to be done.’

“All the stuff I bought is in the bag, along with a bunch of extra food and a map, it should come in handy. And don’t worry about repaying either this or the clothes, I told you you’ve already done more than enough to help Plush, now if you’ll excuse me I need to go find the others and return to the eastern lake city, we still haven’t done all the preliminary quests yet.”

She then darts off and Shiona turns to me.

“I’ve been wondering this for a while now, but what’s all this about you having helped them so much?”

I then explain about the pickits history and the spirits of the mountains, when I finally finish we’ve already left the mountain and we’re outside.

Stolen novel; please report.

-=Shiona POV=-

‘Underground mole-people that kidnap people? I was right on the money when I called them conspiracy worthy huh. By the way which way is even to this eastern lakes place?’

I take out the map from the bag that Charlie gave me and start looking through it.

“What the hell is this thing!? Did she give us a fake toy map!?”

At my outburst both Lizz and Plush turn towards me, asking how I am, but right now I’m too focused on the map.

After a short while I calm down and remember: This is a different world, no wonder maps aren’t as precise as back home.

‘But seriously, this looks like a small kids treasure map, all the mountains are just triangles, it doesn’t show the height of any of them and the country borders are wide belts rather than precise lines!’

“It’s… it’s just drawn so differently from the way they were made back home, thank god it at least shows the roads…” I say as I cover my face… Err… Mask with my wing.

Lizz then comes over and takes a look at the map.

“Wow, we came pretty far on the pickits transport, it’s going to take a few days to get home by foot”

“By the way, what’s so special about the pickit transport that makes it so I can’t ride it?”

“Pinball” Answers Plush.

“Ah.” Since I had seen the pickits roll up before I immediately understood what he meant.

“Ahem! This will take a long time, BY FOOT!” Says Lizz suddenly.

“Yeah, so? As much quicker as it would be for me to just slide us there I can’t control the speed well enough yet, and I told Shiona I wouldn’t make her come along on those fast trips again. Besides, sightseeing is always fun.”

“No, what I mean is that!” She says and points at Shiona. “You have wings, so why not use them!?”

“But what about Plush then? How’s he going to come along?”

“I’m his familiar, he can just borrow my wings for a bi-”

*pok*

“Hey stop it Lizz, don’t try and force Shiona into high heights after she finally got down from the mountain!”

“Plush, as much as I don’t want to, I need to get over this, this place has all kinds of monsters right? I might need to be able to fly at some point to survive.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, but I’m going to need someone to teach me since I’ve never actually flown before.”

“Hey, don’t look at me, our wings work way different.”

*sigh* “Guess I’ll just have to try find out how to do it myself…”

“At least wait until we get to a better place, according to the map there's a lake not too far away from here, it should help ease up your, er, landings. In the meantime I’ll go inside the book and sleep while you two work your asses off.” And as she says that she flies back into the book.

-=Elizabeth POV=-

*sigh* ‘Finally, now what the hell was that guy trying to do earlier? Is she stupid? She is, isn’t she?’

After I entered the book I came back to the weird looking familiar rooms, however rather than going to sleep I walk towards the hall, grab a triangular hat which was hanging on the wall, and exit through the front door.

When I close the door behind me I start to grow taller and my hair turns black, and once I look the way I did before I got entangled with this book I start walking down the aisle. Technically I could’ve done this in my room as well since I’m not in my physical body anywhere inside the book, but I didn’t want to freak out Plush to much

After walking for a bit I come up to a door and knock.

“Hey you fucking shitty city! I know you came out and attacked Plush earlier today, what the fuck is wrong with you!?”

“...”

“Don’t pretend you’re not here! You know that I know you can’t leave!”

*click*

“Oh, we locking doors now!? In that case I’m telling the landla- *click* -dy!”

The door opens, and inside is a metallic orb.

“If you hid in your shell this is only going to take longer.”

The top half of the orb then splits into three wedges, the one in the middle slides off to the back, revealing a large eye, and the two on the sides tilt upwards, creating a gap beneath them from which a pair of very thin and long metallic arms come out of.

It puts its arms on the ground and lifts itself, the lower half then splits into six triangles, each of them getting pushed out by a metallic leg, eventually looking a bit like spider legs.

[...I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about…] Comes an artificial sounding voice from the eyeball, if you looked closely at it you could see that the pupil was actually a hollow hole, and if you listened as closely as you looked you would hear that the voice came from inside of it.

“Oh ha fucking ha! Like hell you don’t! I can understand you wanting to come out of the book as fast as you can, but why the hell did you have to try and threaten him!?”

[... I want out as soon as I can so I can enjoy all the food from the inn that you always look so happy when you’re eating…”}

*sigh* I swear, you’re an even bigger glutton than I am… You do realize there’s no way he would actually let you out of the book for real after what you did right?”

[... No… no no no no no no n-] “Listen, no matter how much you repeat it it won’t change, you fucked up.” [-o no no no no no no-] “Oh shut up already!”

After I snap and shout at the shitty city a small spider like creature comes out of the hole in the mechanic creatures eyeball and runs off into another room, somehow closing to door afterwards.

*sigh* ‘Oh great, I scared the new guy…”

I walk up to the door which she had ran into and sit down outside.

“Listen, I’ll try and put in a good word for you and give you a second chance at a new impression, but you’d better not fuck up the next time shitty city.”

[Stop calling me that!]

“I’ll stop calling you that when you stop being a little shit! Now are you going to take me up on my offer or would you rather wait for a new person to get approval from the book?”

The door slowly opens with a *creak*, and outside comes the small black spider like creature, bending two of its legs upwards and carrying a small machine with them.

[Do you promise…?] Asks the creature, the voice coming from the machine.

“Yes, I promise I’ll try and fix the horrible fuck up that your first impression on him was, but you’d better damn well know you’ll owe me a favor in the future!”

[Thank you!]

The creature drops the machine, luckily the creature was too small for the fall do damage the machine, and it jumps and hugs my arm.

“Alright, alright, but I’ve got to go back now if I don’t want Plush to become suspicious, I can’t use the excuse that I went to the toilet if he realizes I’m gone if I take to long.”

The creature jumps off of my arm and runs up to the machine.

[Okay…]

*sigh* I get back up and go back home, taking on my small form before entering as well as making sure that Plush didn’t have the book open on my page when I enter.

‘Now time for food!’