This time Mary was wrong - the planning session went amazingly smoothly. Turns out that everyone respected Arthur's powers enough not to try anything funny, and Pri's displeasure was widely avoided.

Considering Mary was probably technically within his domain at the moment after her recent makeover, she should have probably paid him a tiny bit more attention. Unfortunately, her mind was pretty occupied by other matters at the moment.

“Hold up.” She said, which was getting easier and easier with every try. “Did I get it right? You're gonna simply buy a gallon of gaian spider milk, but the most common flour requires a month-long of adventure?”

“Exactly. So which part didn't you get?” Arthur said with a raised eyebrow.

Mary was so proud of her ability to limit her voice to a normal volume that she almost didn't want to scream. Almost.

“This. Makes. No. Sense! Just go and buy it at the nearest store.”

“That's not how things are done.”

“So what? You're rebels, or whatever. Rebel!”

“Mary,” Paolo said, placing a hand on her shoulder. He jerked away almost instantly, leaving a bleeding trail in the air as one of the girl's shadows came too close. He looked at her with wide eyes, then quickly recovered the blood and let his wound close itself.

“Sorry,” Mary grumbled. She raised an arm and looked at the things. She didn't want to harm the boy... did she?

“Anyway,” Paolo said more warily, “some things just aren't done a certain way.”

“But why not?”

Paolo opened his mouth and then closed it. He looked at Arthur, who seemed lost deep in his thoughts for a long moment, then shrugged. “It just isn't.”

“Well, how about I just go and do it my way!”

“Mary?” Paolo asked as she stomped out towards the exit. “Mary!”

She didn't stop.

“Do you even know where the nearest store is?!”

She stopped then, and returned to the circle. “Can anyone give me any map of the nearby desert or something?”

When she paraded out of the 'camp', Mary found herself in possession of not just a map, but also a few hundred bucks, a compass that showed almost north, and a bag of food. She wasn't sure she still needed such things - she hadn't really felt any hunger since that catastrophe of a sandwich. How long ago was it, a day? Two? The time suddenly didn't seem as important as when she was still mortal.

She rolled out the map. It was really simple - it only had two labelled dots: a Walmart and the Camp Quarter-Blood. The rest of the parchment was pure yellow-ish white that failed to look golden even in the morning sun.

“I still think it's a bad idea,” Paolo muttered, trying to stifle a yawn.

“Come on. What could go wrong?”

Eight hours later, they had already defeated three giant scorpions, one efreet, ten swarms of small sandworms and two bandit ambushes. Unfortunately, they only crossed a few miles.

“Yeah, what could go wrong. Muchmighty, give me patience,” Paolo grumbled as he was slowly recovering from a warning arrow to the knee. The third ambush turned out to be the most annoying.

The leader of this band was covered from head to toe in some sand-coloured towels, rags, or however they called it here. He was rambling something about them paying a standard toll of ten thousand dollars and walking away unharmed.

“Sorry,” Mary muttered for what felt like a thousandth time today.

“You know what? I'm done,” Paolo spat. He was getting grumpy, and Mary started to see the signs that he needed some well-earned sleep. Oops? Looks like another thing she already forgot about.

“...so how about you-” the ambusher broke off abruptly, clutching his chest. All colours left his skin, and he let out a single cough. Then a bucketful of blood exploded from his chest, leaving a fist-sized hole in the rags. The lifeless body fell to the ground with barely a sound, and others followed suit by the dozens. The sands were already turning red.

Mossie beeped sadly somewhere behind Mary's head.

“What was that?” Mary asked, shocked.

“None of those thugs had any talismans, amulets, idols, or anything remotely protecting. And they would have ended up dead anyway.” Paolo's hands were open, fingers twisted like claws.

Mary was stunned. Had she pushed him too far?

“But...”

“Now that my guardian is dead, I don't have to deal with the likes of those by hand.” He raised both arms, and the blood of his victims started flowing toward the boy.

“What are you-” Mary paused. The blood mixed and joined until it formed a thin, eight-foot-wide disc floating above the ground.

“No need for it to go to waste now, is it?” Paolo said, stepping onto the platform, which didn't budge under his weight. He offered Mary a hand. “Come, let's get that flour and be done with it. It should be way faster that way.”

It was way faster than walking but also way more unnerving. The disc floated evenly a few feet above the ground, gently rising and lowering with the flow of dunes. They reached the store without any more interruptions. Well, almost any, but that last giant scorpion barely counted, as it was properly incinerated without the party slowing down. It seemed that Mary was slowly getting the hang of the fireball spell on its proper power level, which was both great and a bit unsettling.

The Walmart was standing in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sands, sands, and more sands. There were no roads leading to the building, no cars parked around it. But the building itself was as normal as if a giant kid just took it off the city toy set and placed it in the sandbox as part of some game impossible to understand for anyone over ten years old.

The lights were on, and the structure invited them in like an anglerfish.

“So, this is what you think should be the normal way of handling stuff?” Paolo asked.

Mary didn't bother to answer, just walked into the building, readying herself for the trap to spring.