Stepping from a life and death battle zone into a disused barn feels anticlimatic. An incredible need to sleep hits me.
Z: Where are we?
L: You have a phone with GPS.
Z: Right, sorry.
These phones have a notion of their own. All four start signalling at the same time, going by the facial expression of my associates.
We have detected a special transformation zone in formation. It has the potential to grant the power to rewrite reality. Proceed at best speed to the attached coordinates.
20:04:11 hours left.
I conjure a blanket and dump the loot we owe our allies. Zora frowns. Lidija is frantically manipulating a map on her phone.
L: You two are better flyers than I. This is your course to take to the car. We’ll proceed to that intersection on foot. I am sending you the route. Go!
P: Maria’s car?
M: Leave it. This is our chance. Move!
I dare not suggest conserving resources. We have some stamina potions left only because there is a limit to the rate you can drink them down that even Zora cannot change.
I am close to a breakdown, as we reach the children at the parking space.
They are sitting in reclining chairs we definitely haven’t left them. And they are eating fast food out of bags we definitely did not get them. And there is a box I have never seen on a table that is also new.
Z: What has happened here?
S: There was a man who said that he has stuff to deliver for you.
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He points at the box.
P: Later!
She actually manages to fight down the motherly reflex of merciless inquisition. I will not get into her way.
P: You drive. You know the road conditions better.
The children need not even be told to get into the car. I am getting scared.
--
Zora is doing 150 km/h. On a narrow country road. Interrupting her would be certain death. Traffic is only a likely death. I need a distraction.
P: How do we get over the borders?
M: On foot. Waiting takes too long. We cannot risk complications from our travel papers.
L: Border patrols?
M: Too bad for them.
Some distraction. What is in the box? It opens to my touch.
Four abstract sculptures and a smaller box. Are we playing Russian dolls now?
It is trivial to open by flipping open a clasp. In fact it lacks a lock. It does have extensive padding. In fact, this is real velvet. It holds four Awakening Stones. My probe declares them all to be stones of the Rune. They are resting on a further note.
Apply one of them each before the event happens.
We have crossed the first border without having to kill a border guard. Breaching the border at two points with Zora going first worked. I suppose somebody will have to write a report explaining how illegal immigrants melted a border fence, but that is not my problem.
We do have to do two bathroom breaks. But they involve only stopping and leading the children behind bushes. Zora and I are taking turns again. We are keeping it at a speed police would not send a helicopter after us for. But not far below that.
We make it into the zone, which happens to be located in eastern Slovakia.
1:40:50 hours left.
P: I suppose the equipment they sent us for that purpose should be ready and we should follow the instructions of using the stones as far as possible.
L: Yes.
M: This sign says „room available“. How about stopping there? They may have breakfast.
Zora has found out that our magical vehicles can spin on the spot. Turning – and parallel parking for that matter – in them is trivial. There we go. We end up on a small parking space across the road from a farm converted into a restaurant, which is still closed unfortunately.
Stjepan, Lidija and I are working on circles in parallel on sheets of pseudocanvas I have conjured.
0:26:08 hours left.
--
M: I can see sort of a stylized video feed of this place as seen from above.
L: What is this?
Z: It feels like I can blow something up
0:00:43 hours left.
L: Everybody down on the ground. We do not know whether we stay concious if we are retransformed. Assume a stable position.
P: Put one of those sculptures next to you and touch it. Just a hunch.
--
A blink of darkness.
P: My eyes! I cannot see properly anymore!
Where are the traces?