Shiro and Shrapnel were waiting in the market place and they had brought Shiro’s parents with them. They didn’t have a whole lot to pack up to begin with and it looked like Shiro intended to bring them back with us right away. By normal carriage the trip from Trone back to AutomaTown would be about four days, so I wasn’t sure that Shiro had thought it through for his ancient parents.

“Ah, Mister Carnivac, there you are,” Shiro said in a cheerful tone.

“We need to leave. Now,” Carnivac responded, shepherding Shiro and his parents towards the city gate as he took all of their belongings into my [Inventory]. At least Shiro had remembered to turn his disguise back on.

“I thought you wanted to do some shopping for supplies.”

“I found some good deals already, but I have a feeling that things might get a little rough soon.”

“What? Why? What happened,” Shiro argued and slightly dragged his feet.

“There may or may not have been a slight accident at The Factory. Just to be safe, I’d rather us be on the other side of that gate.”

The gate was in sight, but Carnivac could also see one of the guards on top of the gate reacting to signals coming from deeper in the city.

“Move!” he ordered, as he picked up a parent in each arm and started running. His fears were confirmed when he saw the massive gate begin to close so he dodged and leapt around people, knocking some of them over, until he was through the doors and on the other side.

Thankfully, there wasn’t any security blocking people from getting out yet.

“Hey man! What are you doing?” one of the guards yelled at him.

“No telling when they’ll open back up right?” he called back. “I need to deliver these folks to NorthRidge by the night after next.”

“Oh, a quest, huh? It’s gonna be tight or you won’t make it,” the guard called, waving Carnivac and company off and turning his attention back to the complaining folks on the other side of the gate.

Carnivac thought about setting the parents down and letting them walk until they were far enough away from the city to run on all fours but decided that would take too long if they had to travel at grandparent pace. Shiro followed along dutifully with Shrapnel riding on his shoulder.

“Well that was pretty exciting, wasn’t it?” Mom asked.

“Ah, right,” Dad added. “We haven’t been formally introduced have we? I’m Saburo and my wife is Yatsude. Our boy tells us you’re Mister Carnivac.”

“How much has Shiro told you?” Carnivac asked the parents and giving a side glance to Shiro, who seemed unaware.

“Well,” Mom began, “Shirogane told us about what that awful Factory did to him. To think how they lied to us. If I never see it again, it’ll be too soon.”

“He also told us about this Master Prime person,” Dad added, “Shirogane seems to be quite taken with him. Says he owes him his freedom as well as his new body. I’d like to thank him for taking care of our boy.”

“Shirogane?” Carnivac asked.

“It would seem, that’s my full name,” Shiro offered.

“Well, it’s alright. Shiro’s helped us too,” Carnivac said warmly.

“Oh, you know Master Prime as well? Did he help you too? Sounds like such a nice young man,” Mom said, smiling.

“Of course he does, Mother, Mister Carnivac and Master Prime live in the same village after all,” Dad interjected.

“Actually, that’s—” the two looked at Carnivac expectantly. “You know what, nevermind. Yeah, same village. You can meet him when we get back tonight.”

“Tonight?!” Dad said in surprise. “Doesn’t it take three days just to get to NorthRidge?”

Ah, right. I had been thinking about how long it took Shiro and Carnivac to sprint this far at full speed. Even if we each took a parent on our back, there was no way that their old bones could take riding like that for that long.

“We actually took the mountain pass to the south on the way here,” Carnivac explained. “Shiro and I can run the whole way in about six hours... But I can see how that could be a problem for you. Especially since the road isn’t as maintained as the pass through NorthRidge.”

“What about Mister IronHide? Could he meet us along the way?” Shiro suggested.

“Needs repairs before he can convert into truck mode,” Carnivac replied.

It was a straight shot through the southern pass and almost the exact same distance from AutomaTown to Trone as it was from NorthRidge to Trone taking the northern pass. At some points along the way there wasn’t any road to speak of though so it was only viable if you were on horseback or on foot. It also lacked any designated camp spots along the way so you’d truly be out on your own in the middle of the mountains for several days when traveling at normal speeds.

“What do you think, Shiro?” Carnivac asked. “We don’t have any camping supplies but we might be able to make the southern pass with your parents on our backs if we stop every couple of hours for a break.”

“Is that what you’re worried about? You don’t need to worry about us,” Mom insisted.

“That’s right!” Dad followed, “We’re some tough old cats, we’ve gotten by this far!”

The group passed outside of the city limits and beyond the open fields where the worn down Automata were forced to labor. The main road headed north, but if you knew where to look you could see a worn trail heading south.

Carnivac looked around but could only see some other travellers in the distance.

“We’ll be taking the southern pass,” he announced, as he set the parents down. “It’ll be a little rough but it’ll be a lot faster. Plus we shouldn’t run into too many nosy people or bandits since it’s not well traveled.”

“Sounds good, let’s go!” Dad said, giving Carnivac a little punch to the arm.

Carnivac dropped to all fours and shook himself a bit to get everything going the right way. Shiro dropped his disguise and transformed into lion mode with a roar that caught both of his parents by surprise. His mother squealed with delight and grabbed his lion head by the cheeks and gently shook it back and forth.

“Mooom...” Shiro whined, but didn’t pull away.

“I gotta say, son, that’s quite the body. In all my years in Trone, I’ve never seen anything like it. This Master Prime must be a hell of an artificer. I’m sure he could give that Lord Jhaix a run for his money,” Dad said with a whistle of appreciation.

Dad climbed onto Carnivac’s back and grabbed a hold of the straps on his leather armor while Mom climbed onto Shiro. Canivac noticed that Shiro repositioned his wings to the sides to almost act like side rails to help hold her on.

“Let’s get going wolf!” Dad yelled.

“We’re on an adventure!” Mom yelled in response.

Carnivac started off in a trot but chuckled to himself and sped up to a sprint when he felt Dad lean in and start kicking him in his flanks. These were some tough old cats after all.

We alternated running for an hour and resting for an hour to give Shiro’s parents breaks from riding. I really didn’t want to camp out overnight but it was nearly evening and the parents were exhausted. We were a little over halfway when we decided to stop for the night.

Thankfully, the weather was clear but it would still get pretty cold for their old bones. I suspected that they might be used to it due to their living conditions in the slums of Trone but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make them comfortable. I remembered that the Inventory Bag was in my shop back in the village.

Anything that got put into the bag would get transferred into my [Inventory]. I’d made it so that Elita and Shea could use it when they went on quests instead of having to physically carry home their loot and kills. That was before I upgraded and was able to create my own Inventory spaces, of course.

I had Alfred borrow some thick blankets from the Inn as well as a pot for cooking, some water skins, and some ingredients at Shiro’s request. He tossed them into my [Inventory] where I could pull them back out via Carnivac.

“Well now, you got just about anything in that little pouch of yours Mister Carnivac,” Dad said, giving an appreciative nod.

“Tsk,” Shiro said, imitating the sound of sucking teeth. “I hate to put the blankets on the dirty ground. Well I suppose I’ll do laundry tomorrow instead of on Moorstag.”

“You’d rather put your parents in the dirt?” Carnivac asked sarcastically.

“What? No of course not! When you put it like that, I’ll throw those blankets in the mud myself!”

While Shiro got a fire started and began making a stew for his parents, Carnivac climbed a nearby rockface to get a better look at their surroundings. The cliff face was only five or six meters high but it would offer a new perspective. Plus it gave Carnivac something to do while allowing Shiro some time with his parents.

He reached the top and pulled himself up enough to look over the ledge onto the plateau. What he saw was a very surprised tiger sort of creature. It clearly wasn’t expecting to see Carnivac pop up over the cliff any more than Carnivac was expecting to see it waiting for him.

The creature largely resembled a stocky siberian tiger in both general shape and brawn though it had extended fangs like a saber tooth, a single large blue eye like a cyclops, and a single horn growing from its forehead. Its tail reminded Carnivac of a scorpion tail with a barb at the end but more snake-like rather than segmented. Its coloring was more like a snow leopard though with blotches of gray, white, and brown edged in darker shades. The effect was probably to help it camouflage among the rocks and ambush its prey. It was probably adorable as a cub.