After having left Vwyx’s home, their first destination was to where Vwyx had stocked up all the wood for Fhyernx. The four of them might have packed for the occasion, but they still needed a way to reach the city.

Vwyx looked over the large vehicle Fhyernx had brought to transport all of the wood. Fairly similar in design to a long van, the back compartment was currently filled with the supplies Fhyernx was due to transport. The entire thing was yet another instrument, powered and controlled by the gift to provide fast transportation of the occupant and whatever they were bringing with them. It happened to be also designed with only two chairs. Vwyx had compensated for this obstacle, having thought about it ever since the decision at the mansion. She made her way through the front passenger side and poked her head into the area in the back. Making use of some of the wood stashed there, she managed to rapidly meld together two additional chairs in the back area, each melded to the floor in an attempt to provide some measure of safety and comfort.

“By the divine, what are you doing with..” “Relax, I’ll put it back the way it was when we finally get there. Certainly you were prepared to provide some measure of comfort for your passengers?” Fhyernx grumbled, losing even more control of the situation to Vwyx. Vwyx and Sryine took to the two custom-made chairs, allowing Khyzae to sit in the properly designed chair. With everything in order, Fhyernx took control over the mobile instrument and drove off. Not moments after they left did Vwyx and Sryine discover they were quite hungry, both because of the frugal usage of the gift they had been applying, but also due to the fact it was lunch time.

Khyzae passed back some of the packed lunch her mother had given to her for just this occasion, having predicted this very eventuality. Fhyernx was a bit more unsatisfied by the turn of events, being himself unable to remain focused on their travels while also eating. He had his own lunch already available for him, something he could eat at their first rest stop as he recovered his stamina. Vwyx and Sryine took the opportunity to go over some of their new reading materials, even though the current circumstances wouldn’t promote much conversation on the same subject. Khyzae had much less available to occupy her attention, and was left to watch the passage of scenery. However, Vwyx wasn’t someone who could distract herself with a book for very long and eventually put her book away, leaving only the devoted bookworm Sryine to still be absorbed in her book.

“What sort of schedule are we looking at anyway?” “Well, it’s quite a drive to the city, I’ll need to make a couple of stops along the way to recover. Once we reach Windvale, I’ll need to make sure all of our supplies are delivered properly, then we can figure out the best way to proceed. Sorry, I haven’t exactly had much time to plan this sort of thing out, same as you three. On the bright side, you’ll get to personally see where I bring all that wood you keep trading away.” Vwyx nodded, realizing that expecting any more of a schedule from Fhyernx might not be all that reasonable. He could get them to the city, much like he would have normally done, but from there they would need to figure out a new plan.

Being otherwise unoccupied in the seat behind Khyzae, Vwyx took the opportunity to watch Fhyernx manage their transportation. Having worked with him in the past, she had seen it around before, but she had never gotten the chance to see it in action. It was a very complicated instrument, the main control for it was a mounted sphere rotating in a cage before him. The sphere looked like it was rolling forwards, in line with the vehicle, and causing it to roll to the side also made the vehicle turn. Fhyernx had to keep his hands near the sphere at all times, so that it was not confused by the will and focus of other passengers. Behind the sphere were an assortment of smaller instruments, clearly informational gauges that looked to be reporting on the performance of the vehicle. From Vwyx’s seat, it was far too difficult to identify exactly what anything was actually reporting upon, but it was interesting regardless.

The passage Fhyernx drove alone suddenly opened wide into a clearing beside a small hill beside a similarly small pond. Fhyernx then drove up near the hill and parked the vehicle, flopping back into his chair exhausted once it was safe to do so. “If anyone wants to stretch their legs, this is a good time to do so. We’ll be stopping here for a while, but don’t go wandering off, not unless you want me to leave you behind.” Fhyernx pulled out his packed lunch from a nearby storage compartment, generally ravenous. The others took to his recommendation and got out of the vehicle, looking around. Sryine was still absorbed in her reading, finding a good spot on the hill to stretch her legs out flat on the grass. Khyzae went to check the pond, finding a handful of tiny fish swimming around it.

Vwyx was more interested by the edge of the clearing. Wandering up to the nearest tree, she put her hand upon it and inspected it’s wood quality. To everyone else, they were still surrounded by trees, much as they had been the entire journey. To a woodcraft expert, Vwyx could easily tell how much had already changed. The trees before her were not familiar at all, not the same kind of wood that had grown around the village she had spent her entire life in. She couldn’t even tell what kind of wood it actually was, only that it was different. This feeling and impression left her very aware that they were already far from home.

Khyzae tapped Vwyx on the shoulder, startling her. Vwyx turned around, noticing that Khyzae was holding out some packed sandwiches as a bit of a snack. Vwyx could see Sryine on the hill, already munching away at her sandwich while still absorbed in her book. It was becoming all too obvious that the girl could read under any circumstances, Vwyx herself had started to feel a bit nauseous after trying to read in the moving vehicle. As Vwyx started to partake of her offered snack after a quick thanks in gratitude, Khyzae tried to figure out what had caught Vwyx’s attention. To her, the tree was just another tree, much like all those that had come before it. She wondered if Vwyx had seen something in the trees that she had not, much like the fish she had found in the pond. They were in the wilderness at this point, unbridled nature was all around them.

Fhyernx meanwhile had gotten out of the vehicle and started to stretch his own legs, doing some basic maintenance on their transportation under the front hood. Vwyx wandered over in curiosity, with Khyzae close behind. “Stupid thing stuck on so obnoxiously tight, hellish thing. Oh, Khyzae, perfect! This stupid calibrator needs to be reset, but it’s stuck, can you give me a hand with it?” “Uh, maybe? I’m not sure what you expect me to do, though.” “Oh come on, your gift of course. Being able to boost people’s natural ability, all in that, you know? Just need a bit more upper arm strength to get this stupid thing off and I can get it all fixed up.” Fhyernx seemed aware of certain qualities of Khyzae’s gift that not even any of the others were aware of, including Khyzae herself. Khyzae gave it a try, focusing on her mother’s bracelet as she put her left hand on Fhyernx’s right shoulder. After giving Khyzae a moment to do her thing, Fhyernx made another attempt at the calibrator, finally getting the crystalline prism free of its domain.

“So.. what exactly is a calibrator anyway?” “Well, you know how the gift is powered off of people’s stamina. Well, for the sort of things some instruments are capable of doing in everyday life, the amount of drain it would cause on a person’s stamina would have most instruments lasting nothing more than a few moments. That’s why we’ve got things that work with such limited potential and magnifies its performance. The more demanding the instrument, the more complicated its need for special converters so that it could do anything at all. All of that stuff then has a cascade of other demands, such as making sure we have any control over the results at all, like this little thing helps with.” Vwyx watched Fhyernx tend to the calibrator with a strange solution, wiping it down carefully until it took up a much darker shade. His work complete, Fhyernx turned to put the converter back into its previous location, struggling to force it into place. Khyzae turned to her gift again, providing a bit more strength for Fhyernx, and allowing him to successfully complete his maintenance of their transportation. Vwyx marvelled at the entire assembly that was responsible for such gift augmentation, appreciating the lesson on complex modern-day instrumentation.

Soon after, the four of them were back on the road once again. Vwyx was becoming aware that even considering the height of quality in her construction, the material limitations of her chair didn’t provide some of the best long-lasting comforts. To that end, they had cushioned seats with some coats they had each brought along with them. Khyzae had swapped seats with Sryine, feeling guilty about being able to sit in comfort as the other two struggled in discomfort. The first thing Khyzae noticed about sitting in the back.. okay, the second thing after the chairs themselves was that her new location was deprived of any quality windows. Seated behind Fhyernx, she actually had nothing to occupy her attention with anymore. Sryine visibly did not have this problem, her books keeping her well occupied. Vwyx however had taken the opportunity to learn about their transportation.. and was now returned to a state of her own boredom.

Vwyx pulled out the small music box she had been working on in her workshop, giving it some more thought now that she had plenty of time with which to work on it. She knew she didn’t have any of the instruments on hand needed to make any further progress, but it was at least a decent opportunity to sit in contemplation. Khyzae turned to look at the work Vwyx had completed as well, finding the beautiful craftsmanship of the exterior at least a sight to behold. Catching Vwyx’s contemplation, Khyzae also noticed how the interior was mostly incomplete. Khyzae took a moment to contemplate Vwyx’s lifestyle, trained in woodworking. She had been shown the bookshelf Vwyx had delivered over a year ago, and realized that she was technically sitting in more of Vwyx’s work, but never had such a good opportunity to appreciate just how skilled Vwyx could be with such precision in her craft. Khyzae put a hand over her right wrist, recalling that Vwyx’s crafting gift had even extended to herself as well. She held up the same wrist for her own inspection, the simple act of not seeing anything special in it exemplary of just how much quality Vwyx had put into it. She recalled being able to share this back in kind, using her own gift to fix up Vwyx’s arm. It wasn’t quite the same kind of fixing, in that case it was more like regular healing.

Khyzae contemplated what she even knew of her own gift. Fhyernx had said that she was gifted at boosting people’s natural ability. In that account, she suspected that she had originally used her gift on Vwyx to boost the natural healing ability of Vwyx’s body. She suspected she somehow had just known she was capable of such a feat, that’s why she had made use of her gift that way that night almost subconsciously. She had thoughts that weren’t quite her own, her mind both a garbled mess and an incomplete collection. Fhyernx was here exemplary of the fact, a person who knew her even more keenly than she knew herself.

Khyzae noticed some of the wood collected on the floor beside her seat. She lifted it up carefully, testing the capacity of her own strength. Setting down the log, she put focus into her bracelet again, trying to boost her own strength. She lifted up the log once again, finding it no easier to pick up. This left her feeling disappointed, was she somehow excluded from the potential of her own gift? A person’s natural ability, might it then be that she didn’t count because she wasn’t anything close to natural? After all, she was in fact an artificial being, not quite exactly even a person. Her gift was able to heal a person’s injury, but it took a crafter to heal her own injuries. Faced with this realization, Khyzae just sat in quiet contemplation for a while.

By the time Vwyx put away her incomplete work, they had already left the trees behind, opening into the great expanse of a field. From where they were, they could see an endless expanse of mountains hiding behind the outstretched expanse of hills. As they parted ways with the trees completely, Vwyx came to terms with how strange everything felt. It was a scenery unlike anything she had ever experienced, one devoid of any pretense of her life’s work. All the same, there was even the sudden feeling of civilization, as a number of farms littered the distance before the hills. This was an example of how people beyond the woodlands tend to their everyday lives, how people not invested in forests make the most of their .. fields. Even in every parallel she could draw, she couldn’t help but to feel as an outsider to a foreign land.

Khyzae also took the opportunity to appreciate the new scenery, the clear blue sky opened endlessly before them. Neither her nor Vwyx had the best seat for the experience, but they tried to share the space between both front seats to their best of their ability to get a view of the expanse before them. Something about this view seemed familiar to her, though the thoughts and memories were but fragments at best. It wasn’t anything more than an artificial familiarity, thoughts that weren’t entirely her own. These considerations weren’t but a harsh reminder of the reality behind her own ambiguous existence. However, even if they weren’t quite her own, they were all she really had. If she wanted to make anything from her own continued existence, she would have to put together whatever fragments of memory she was left with, and from there take the time to create new memories of her own. In light of that insight, she began to carefully study the scenery, to determine if there was anything further she could learn from it.

All the way up to their second stop, Sryine had not stopped reading beyond the term of a moment. There were times she had put down a completed book, only to uncover another. So even when their vehicle pulled up to a small barn working as a road-side rest stop, Sryine hadn’t noticed a thing. Fhyernx was thus the first to step out, the taller Sryine gradually making her way out with her book, and the other two eager to follow. Finally getting a chance to look around freely, standing free of the chair they had been restricted to, Khyzae and Vwyx were fully absorbed in the view of the scenery.

“Awesome, we’re finally far enough into some real civilization to actually be in range of any decent signal.” Fhyernx pulled out a small flat instrument and started tampering with it, before putting it up to his ear. “Hey, Liyuzhe, almost made it to the city again. Yeah.. yup. Listen, I’ve got a surprise for you, you won’t believe who I have here with me.” Fhyernx passed off the instrument to Khyzae, who cautiously put it to her own ear, having turned at sounds of the sudden conversation. “Hello?” “By the divine! Khyzae! By the divine, how I’ve missed you. I know there was no way you could have called, stuck out in the wilderness, but geez, couldn’t you have at least written me a letter or something? Anything from you wouldn’t have been better than nothing at all, you had me worried sick you know.” “I’m.. I’m sorry?” “Yes, yes, at least you’re back finally. Let me talk to Fhyernx again, okay? I need to make sure he doesn’t waste any more time. Oh seriously, all the things we have to talk about, I seriously can’t wait.” Khyzae passed the instrument back to Fhyernx as the voice from it instructed, the girl named Liyuzhe. Khyzae was all too certain it was yet another person familiar with the previous version of herself, someone she had a total sum of zero memories about.

“Yes? Oh come on, you know I can’t make the trip in one shot! That’s completely unreasonable. Look, this is the last stop before we reach Windvale, I’ll even treat her and her new friends to an early dinner so they aren’t hungry. Would that be alright? Thank you for your understanding, see you when we get there.” As Fhyernx disconnected the call, he found everyone else staring at him. Even Sryine had put her book away and was caught in full attention. “Woah, isn’t that thing one of those instruments from the Terran Mythos? What was it called again.. a ‘cell-phaewn’?” Sryine was unable to properly pronounce the word ‘cellphone’, Celese not being all that accustomed to o-type sounds in conversation.

“Well, I hear it was based upon a similar myth, just getting the name ‘Cell’ for short. I’m surprised you know the English for it, usually only the most established individuals of society are capable of using even sparse words in English. Well, I guess with a pronunciation like that, it’s not like you’re all that close to speaking in fluent English anytime soon. If you want someone who knows some impressive English, wait till you meet with our friend Ieqyisa. She’s outright fluent in the language of instrumentation.” Fhyernx presented some useful information for Vwyx and Sryine, Vwyx herself being completely ignorant of the language in question. Sryine had read a bit about English in her books, so she was in turn aware of how the language had some of its roots in instrumentation advancements over the era. However, everything she knew came from a small collection of books, which didn’t make her anything close to an expert in the field.

Locking the vehicle up, Fhyernx led the way into the establishment, visibly looking like a country-side restaurant. “Oh, hey Fhyernx. Making your rounds back home I see? Wow, quite the gentleman, picking up a few ladies on the trip? One of them is even another human, does that mean you got yourself a girlfriend?” “Hey, no. Everything here is a matter of business. Bringing home a business associate, Khyzae, and her two friends. Please don’t make any trouble for them, or Liyuzhe is going to have my head. Liyuzhe and Khyzae are actually childhood friends, going a long way back.” “Ah, so you’re still devoted to Liyuzhe. Had me wondering there for a moment. Sure Fhyernx, I’ll make sure your business clientele are treated like good customers.” The human waitress greeting them visibly knew Fhyernx personally, including how to mess with his head. She provided them with a window-side seat and a selection of menus before wandering off and allowing them to figure out what they wanted.

Sryine picked up the menu and looked it over. This wasn’t exactly the sort of reception she was used to, the formality was kind of unsettling in a subtle way. The menu listed a bunch of things familiar enough that she could figure out what she wanted, but it threw a measure of uncertainty in its own measure. Beside every option was a value, the price of that choice, another thing she had no past exposure with. She could tell it was a notation of currency, she had read about it at least in some of her books, but her village did not operate on a form of currency itself. Most of what they exchanged was either in trade or in good faith, never with an actual form of currency.

“Okay, so yeah, feel free to each order whatever you want, but please make sure to keep it under 15 Qeld each.” “Uh.. what’s a Qeld?” “Vwyx, see that double-slashed squiggle beside the number on each line? That’s the symbol for a Qeld, it’s a thing used for trading stuff. The higher the number, the more its worth.” “Wow, for a wilderness girl, Sryine seems to know a surprising number of things about civilized life.” Fhyernx was impressed at how well Vwyx’s inquiry got answered by Sryine. As it was, spending 60 Qeld on dinner was going to eat up much of today’s profits, Liyuzhe was going to owe him for this one. Fhyernx actually went cheap and just decided to stick with some stew and water. The three girls were a bit more indecisive, uncertain exactly what they should order.

“So, everyone figured out what they want?” “Sorry, just wondering, this Aquarius Flambe seems like a well seasoned full course fish fillet, very appetizing but.. it seems like it might be a bit much for a single sitting. Would there be the option to have only a half portion? Khyzae, do you want to share the other half? All things considered, it would keep your costs low enough that you could have the mintberry smoothie they also seem to have.” “Oh, oh, really? Sure, whatever you think is best.” “Fhyernx, would you be willing to split one with me too? I want to try some of that.” The waitress wrote down the request Sryine presented, accepting the reasonable request from such money-conscious customers. Khyzae’s eyes were glistening at the offer for more mintberry, leaving Vwyx not wanting to feel left out. Fhyernx was left to skip out on his original idea for stew, still making sure he only had his water to worry about. Each of the girl’s meal came to exactly 15 Qeld, not a fraction of a Qeld less. The smoothies alone were 5 and a half Qeld each. Fhyernx wasn’t certain if he should be upset they pushed their budget to the maximum, or happy they didn’t go over it.

The four of them finished their delicious meals appreciatively. After paying and being compelled by the waitress to offer a generous tip, he realized he had somehow still managed to go over 60 Qeld despite his best efforts. Sryine was around to watch Fhyernx pay. The first 20 Qeld were paid using 10 Qeld sheets of paper, the remainder paid by a very thin metallic sheet instrument, embedded opals glistening softly as it reflected the sunlight from the horizon of the mountains. It was only early in the evening, not even time for a real supper yet, but the tall mountains made it appear as if sunset was scheduled to occur early as well. Once everything was paid for, the four of them returned to the vehicle and resumed their journey.

“This is an impressive sunset. Khyzae, what do you think of it? The mountains actually look pretty remarkable like this.” “That’s the Vesper mountain range, kind of the shoulder of Windvale. The city is itself along the Windvale river, passing between the hills and those mountains. The city is mostly on the west side of the river, we won’t even actually be crossing over the river or anything, but set in the valley of such peeks makes the brighter hours of the day feel much shorter.” Sryine for once was no longer reading a book, taking into account the scenery along with everyone else. Fhyernx’s geographical insight made things even a bit more interesting for Sryine, considering she had no books on the same subject. However, she couldn’t help but realize the bad opportunity for such research, having given up the front seat to Vwyx in turn of their cycle. The two elves were left in the back, attempting to survey the beauty of the sunset, while Vwyx returned to her music box. Left in a field that didn’t change all that rapidly, Vwyx felt she had already taken in her unchanging surroundings as much as she wanted, and returned to matters that better matched her interests.

The four of them continued driving along the trail, dirt and gravel being eventually replaced by smooth finished stone. Hidden behind the hills intercepting their path was the city of Windvale, the last stop of their long drive.