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(Vol 5) Chapter 31: Float On
🕑 Added 2024-05-28 15:42:56 +0000 UTCSammy contacted Jeeves immediately after the realization. “I need to make a transfer up in the Everwood. We’re going to move Ash into another mirror and take our hot one elsewhere while hers goes to Stokefield. Just in case. Feasible?”
“Very good, Madam,” was Jeeves’ reply to Sammy’s query. “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best is the saying, I believe. I shudder to think of the implications if they can chase such a thread. In any case, all Servitors are equipped with physical mirrors. When Porthos or Dart shapeshift to a clothed form, they’ll be able to produce a real one, and you can make your transfer that way.”
Aramis popped into her head with a mental bow. “Apologies on behalf of the Brain Trust, Madam. I believe we’ve been thinking too much in Caneboroan or Geirkosi terms, or we might’ve realized the true danger to Agatha’s people. We need to remember things are far different there, so intimately under the nose and thumb of the Dominion.”
Sammy shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. No one can think of everything, just some things. But yeah, Agatha’s ass needs covering especially. For now, anyway. Besides that, this girl seems like a pretty big deal. I’m not sure I want them to know she’s in Caneboro, though I guess they’ll suspect it. We’ll take her straight to The Farm, let her breathe a bit, but eventually evac her to the Southlands.”
The Fortuneteller chimed in suddenly. ‘You must bring them all together once Sympathetically aligned. Remember this. It is essential.’
“Look, whatever, but I already have one secluded in the Southlands anyway! There’s a time and a season for everything. Perhaps I’ll bring Estara- bah! Enough of this, I don't have time right now.”
The Fortuneteller said nothing more, just mentally stared as she slowly faded away.
Sighing to herself, Sammy went right back to what she was doing, which was piloting a levitating hand mirror that had Fate’s Daughter trapped inside it, at five to seven meters per second in the dark through vast, hostile territory, under an illusion with a huge blind spot, avoiding eyes, terrain twists and turns, and various animal dangers.
Piece of cake! If only Dad could see me now, he’d… well, he’d be confused and super weirded out, like I was. But also super proud! I’m pretty damn sporty, now. I’ve got abs! Er, when I want them, that is. As for mirror levitation… I’ll turn this into an Olympic sport when the lands are at peace. It can’t be any weirder than Curling! Ooh, maybe mirror surfing…
She did come close to slamming into a huge bear once, but it ultimately never knew how close it had come to being poked. She dodged it deftly and kept going.
The night wore on. Azure and Resemblant aides who’d been keeping an eye on things in the Dominion city where the incident had occurred — Eltridge — reported massive general upheaval. All gates were staying closed to any exit or entrance, and bands of men with levitating bright orbs similar to the ‘sun’ above were poking around every dark crevice and shadow. Citizens were pulled from their homes as every building was being searched thoroughly.
Illusion countermeasures. They were trying to catch her without alerting her before, but now they’re going all-out. Too bad we’re already gone.
It was a good sign that tracking the objects wasn’t feasible. If she had to guess, the link was thin, the comparison greatly in her favor, and if possible at all, might require a specialist or ritual magic. Though she had no good mirror sight angles, traffic by soldiers out of the gates indicated they were beginning searches beyond the city, but it was broad rather than concentrated.
Signs were clear that what sewers were traversable were being searched, too, but Sammy had specifically chosen a smaller, mucky crawl hole to bury her mirror. Chance discovery was impossible, except maybe during a super dry season.
If she was especially lucky, they did not even have a ‘mirror’ on the brain to begin with, though they had figured out the illusions part. She’d Mazed the Brains of the Operation in the house, and the only sort of men left in the room to notice a mirror missing seemed like basic mooks. Did they even want to help? Probably not, knowing Hatguy’s nature. She imagined there were some people secretly elated that he was missing.
I’ve missed any window to zip this thing out of the city. It’s all too hot now. Best to leave it alone and let the aura cool. The longer nothing is done with it, the worse the chances of detection. Eventually, it’ll just be a random mirror.
They’d taken a mirror she’d used before, and nothing had come of it for nearly a month. Odds were that they couldn’t do jack shit after a certain duration. Not that she’d take any chances, especially with the one she’d used [Mirror Maze] with to capture a Dominion agent of some importance.
I kicked a hornet’s nest at this point. They’re looking for him just as much as her.
Hatguy was busy navigating a maze of generic horrors. It seemed to keep his attention, though he was always expecting to find the end and have an epic showdown with his captor. He kept getting denied, revealing another layer of onion to the maze each time, to his often screaming frustration.
Perhaps a jail cell waits at the end? Or perhaps I could figure something more elaborate… I can’t actively design anything right now, though. He’s stuck with subconscious crap. It must seem dream-like comparatively.
The night wore on to the focus of relatively high-speed travel through prevalent wilderness. Farms grew less and less frequently seen, and she dodged several networks of watchtowers and forts. Some might’ve been abandoned from a more dangerous time in such forested lands, but she wasn’t inclined to investigate.
A bit of news came over the duration. The ship was well downriver and all looked to be going smoothly on that front. The weather was cooperative, and the wind normal — which was beneficial for a bit of extra sail speed even if it didn’t change very much.
Meanwhile, a route was being forged south of the spot in the Eleks, to bridge mirrors south and over the mountains, where invisible high-altitude Pegasus travel was a bit safer. A backup plan to seeking out her next Bridge of Edges location. Considering her last experience, and the fact that a Pegasus could pull her Avatar while she projected anyway, she might make the ‘backup’ the primary plan.
I can’t be afraid of that space, whatever happened. I won’t let it happen again. I can’t, in more ways than one. At least I fixed it.
Thoughts of this nature made her heart beat a little faster, so she moved on.
The hours passed by rather quickly. Soon, she found herself zipping through the thick, ancient forests of the Everwood. She arrived at a small, inner clearing that was the rendezvous location, entirely covered by trees in every direction, with an overhanging leaf canopy above that showed very little sky to speak of.
There was a very small, murky pond within a sudden rocky dip, its outer edges covered in thick, green algae. Its center was where her Resemblants had found a portal to ping and scope things out. On a nearby high tree branch, two large owls with green eyes perched, watching the mirror approach despite its supposed invisibility.
Sammy turned the mirror upright and dropped the illusion to wave at them. She felt a bit disoriented from the sudden stop. She’d basically been virtually sprinting for four hours straight. The non-moving world had a strange spin or vibration to it, comparatively. “Hey, boys. Fancy meeting you here. I take it the coast is clear?”
The two owls glanced at each other, and then back to her, blinking. Then Dart the Owl said, “You know it, Mirror Mommy. Not a damn thing but trees, bugs, and small, scrumptious furry things for hours of walking in any given direction. Wait, did I just say scrumptious?”
“You did,” Porthos the Owl replied. “Bird brain pollution. At least you aren’t blathering about ‘tasty insects’ like before.”
“Don’t call me that, Dart!” Sammy called in annoyance. “Anyway, get your ass over here and transform to have a mirror ready for the transfer. Porthos, you keep an eye out.”
‘Roger that, Madam!” Porthos said, and then he flew off to begin a patrol.
The remaining owl flew over to the edge of the pond and polymorphed into Dart’s oldest human guise — a fancy young nobleman. He pulled a mirror out immediately to inspect himself in it with deliberate haughtiness. “Well, if you must borrow it…”
Sammy rolled her eyes. “Technically, no, because you’ll be transporting it down to Stokefield.”
Dart lowered the mirror to smile. “Even better, then.” His smile evaporated like smoke. “You know, I still haven’t forgiven you for tossing me out of the train window. That was terrifying.”
Sammy stared blankly. “I have no idea what you mean — I wasn’t ever on a train. I could never be a conductor or something like that. It must’ve been someone else.”
Dart glowered at her. “It was you and you know it! Hmmph. I’ll call it even… if you will agree to an eight-hour vacation allotted to me off the coast of Caneboro. To seek out prime fish.”
“Tch! Dart, are you really asking me to let you gorge yourself and deprive the ocean of fish for eight hours straight, for no real purposeful reason?”
“No! The purpose is my pleasure, which is extremely purposeful! Also, I won’t be gorging myself, I’ll be hunting judiciously for the famed dolphin-nosed greenfin and other deep-sea delicacies. Not an automatic process, you know! The heights of tenderness and freshness glory cannot be rushed.”
Sammy sighed longsufferingly. “Alright, fine. You’ve earned your break. Eight hours.”
Dart did a victorious double fist-pump in front of him, teeth bared, and hissing very dragon-like, “Yes! The icy task mistress at least has a tiny heart to tug!”
Sammy narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”
Dart straightened and smiled, holding up his hands. “I mean a huge heart! Gigantic! And you’re not even a taskmistress! A totally warm, super generous boss!”
Frowning, Sammy suddenly felt a crisis of faith in herself. “Am I a taskmistress? It’s not like I’m giving out tons of breaks and vacations… I mean some get it, I guess… but not structurally… And, like, the world is at stake…”
“No, no! We get it. Really. You’re under a lot of stress, you don’t think about these things, etcetera… heh…”
Sammy growled in frustration. On Heavenpeak, she stomped her foot. “Damn it, I don’t have time for a crisis of faith! Look, just sit tight for a minute. I need to break the plan to Ash.”
She cast her mind over to Ash’s maze realm, where Ash was lying on a bed, staring up at the ceiling. The ‘voice from on high’ cleared its throat. “Ash. We need to make a transfer to another mirror. The first one… well, it’s too hot. They might be able to track it. Better to start fresh now that we’re out of the- well, in the middle of the woods.”
Ash shot up out of the bed, eyes shifting to the news. “We’re in the Everwood?! How far?”
“Ten kilometers deep, maybe. Secluded. We took as much of a beeline as we could while avoiding the more southwestern logging community or whatever it is.”
“That’s precisely what it is. They don’t chop to the north or northeast. Excellent. What is the plan from here?”
“Get you down to the river and smuggle you under the cloak of illusions to Mot Mekess and eventually to Caneboro. We have a place off the grid. No one will ever know you’ve been there, though I guess it’s the general place they expect. Doesn’t make much difference, as the Dominion’s pull is shit there.”
“Caneboro.” Ash took a deep breath and nodded. “Very well. There’s no time to lose. I’m ready, Goddess.”
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