FMH: Everything ~ Twenty-Seven

Thanks to the fact that the time dilation of The World of Names was higher than their base world, it was nearly a minute in Luke's subjective time before each of the others were on his side of the portal. Taylor closed it with a flick of her wrist and gestured in the direction where she believed they needed to move.

Zed was the first one to point out the major issue with this plan. “Sorry to be the one to burst your bubble, Taylor, but I seem to recall that this was about as far as the world went in this direction? Remember the whole ‘diminishing returns on distance traveled’ thing that we had going on?”

“He has a point; maybe we should have gone into The Grove?” Andre offered immediately. “If they have Druids on their side of the border, they have to be bound to that plane of existence as well, right?”

Luke waited for the Mage’s reasoning, seeing as she had a smirk on her face and was letting the others build up the issue on her behalf. Finally, she decided to clue them into her thought process. “You're correct, but I have a plan. Also, you have to think that, if they have Ascenders of a certain type on their side of the border, they're going to have defenses in place to protect that border, just like we do. If we went to The Grove, I am certain there would be all sorts of traps and ambushes ready and waiting for us in no time flat.”

“Cool, a plan. I love plans, especially when they have us do something that no one else has ever been able to do in the history of the world. Let's hear your plan.” Zed cheerfully plopped onto the ground, sitting in a lotus position before dropping his chin into both hands. He looked like a schoolchild waiting for a particularly interesting story from his favorite teacher, a bizarre dichotomy with the bloodstained clothes he was wearing.

“Zed. You have a little singe right there.” Luke poked the spot on Zed’s shirt, earning a wince of pain and a sharp intake of breath from the Bard. “Ah. It burned the skin under that spot, too.”

“I noticed.” Zed glared at Luke, only for his eyes to go wide. “Hey buddy… not sure if you noticed, you have a gaping wound on your inner thigh. Did you get savaged by a dog?”

“No, I'm fine-” Luke looked down at his leg, blinked a few times at the blood that was practically pouring out, and reached for his satchel. “Huh. Look at that. I wonder why I didn't get notified about a serious wound.”

“Heh. That worked to clear out the infernal infection. That Lieutenant is going to be so annoyed that his plan failed.” Pulling up his status was a strangely difficult task, and his numbers, specifically his health and mana, were fuzzy and difficult to discern. There was an easy solution to this issue, so he popped the top of his waterskin and took a deep gulp. Then he looked down at his leg, ensuring that the flesh knit back together as rapidly as it was supposed to. Thus assured, he turned his attention to the other problem he was having. “It's hard to read my status currently...”

“Well, Luke, you see, sometimes words get really big. Then, they get very difficult to understand-” Zed’s words were waved off by the Murderhobo, the physical action sending a light shower of blood away from his hand.

“I can read just fine. I'm good numbers, too.”

“Good at numbers, Luke. ‘With numbers’ is also acceptable, linguistically.” Zed spoke soothingly, taunting the huge man. “See, this is why I'm worried about your ability to read your status.”

Luke paused in place, devoting all of his attention to trying to discern why he might be having this strange issue. There hadn't been too many things that had been able to damage him during his fight so far, certainly nothing that had been able to potentially alter his Sigil or his mental state. When he realized what the issue was, he snapped his fingers and opened his eyes, having not even realized that he had closed them. “That blue mist. It had to be some kind of magical anesthetic. Tricky. If you see an enemy blowing blue mist at you, try to avoid it instead of inhaling it. It makes your status hard to access.”

“A good practice in life, Luke.” Andre chuckled lightly as he watched Taylor draw something out. “Whenever an enemy sends anything at you, just go ahead and try to avoid it instead of breathing it in. Mist, fire, lightning…”

Luke stared at the Druid, a strange expression on his face. “I've never tried to breathe fire. Do you think that would-”

“There!” Taylor’s sudden cheerful cry made the others glance her way. “I think I figured out what we need to do. Remember how Zed made a joke about making artificial bindpoints to our world? I think if we place plants here, Andre, then grow them, followed by a burst of mana from Luke's stores, we can generate an artificial bind point and allow us to travel unimpeded into the Dynasty of Dogs!”

They considered her words for a few moments, each of them pondering the implications of the information she had just offered. Luke was the first to get on board, mainly because he already had his waterskin out and ready to use. “You think, if we make a bindpoint, it’ll fold the dimension around our earth more than it currently is? Instead of it being a flat plane, we will have a bridge that allows us to move a greater distance? I like it. They won't be expecting it. We can drop in on them and slaughter their army from behind.”

“When did you become an expert at extra-planar movement?” Andre quizzed Luke, excited to have another person to include in his academic theorizing.

“Huh?” Luke's answer was enough to stymie Andre's grand ambitions, so he merely focused on growing the plants in the location Taylor had indicated. They weren't entirely certain if the previous point had been a fluke, or if it was something they could replicate, so they made sure to use the same type of plants and recreate the conditions as best as they could.

As the plants finished growing—mostly flowers from their base world—some combination of the flora, Andre’s mana being bound to that world, the growth being accomplished being in this world, and an influx of pure energy from Luke caused the effects to be copied near perfectly. Once again, the Murderhobo was the first to confirm that he saw flashes of the other worlds appearing in the energy being released, but this time, there was a clear change in their surroundings.

Things in this world that had seemed so far away a moment ago drew closer, as if the group had suddenly put a magnifying glass in front of their eyes. Taking only a moment for Zed to command the plants to protect themselves from any of the local wildlife, they began running. For the first time since they had begun this quest, it appeared as though they had a clear corridor to its completion.

Luke watched as Taylor pulled out a thick parchment, unfolding it over and over until she revealed a large, not-well-detailed map. “If I am reading this correctly, the nearest palace we could find in the Dynasty of Dogs is going to be the provincial capital. I say we aim directly at it, figure out if Cindy was taken there, then plan our route from there.”

No one had any complaints about this option, so they merely continued running as far as they could, until eventually Zed passed out from exhaustion and needed to be carried by Luke. After that, the group moved slower, mainly due to the changing conditions of the world that they were in. Instead of the strange, nearly perpetual twilight that coated this plane of existence, they had been moving toward what appeared to be full night. Luke was incredibly interested in the new information he was gathering and hoped that stronger monsters, Spells in this world, he supposed, could be found in the night.

Taylor seemed more concerned than anything else and was watching the encroaching darkness with worried eyes. “I've never heard of the World of Names having true nighttime before.”

“Well… we’re going in a direction that has been known to have incredibly diminishing returns on travel. Could it be that you're the first Mage from your world to be able to make it all the way over here? Or at least to bother doing so?” Andre offered brightly. “Also, do you think we should pop into the Dynasty of Dogs and make sure that we're going the correct direction? Or, Abyss, we should just make sure that we're getting as far as we actually think we are.”

Taylor agreed, and the two of them went through their portion of making a binding to the world. They looked expectantly at Luke, who hesitated before firmly deciding to keep his waterskin exactly where it was. “Stop wasting my mana. Actually, where's the one I gave you earlier, Andre?”

“The one…?” Andre winced and looked away, unable to meet Luke's eyes. “I'm so sorry, I think I forgot it in the commotion. I only used a little bit of the water; I hope we can replace it for you. Shoot, I hope it doesn't get stepped on and cause an issue.”

The Murderhobo stared at the Druid for a long moment with hollow eyes, slowly allowing a smirk to appear on his face. Not saying a word, he pulled the waterskin off his belt strap and tossed it to the two of them. They watched him curiously, but he only shrugged and offered no further explanation.

Not wanting to waste his generosity, they poured some mana out then waited until the distortions appeared once more. Luke was watching the surroundings carefully, and as the artificial bindpoint was created, the dimension they were in shifted and firmed up slightly. It moved like a slow wave, traveling along the path they had taken to reach this point. When he looked more closely, everything about the universe between the two points seemed more clear, more usable, and somehow he knew it was a safe-ish path for him to tread.

Taylor popped open a portal then stepped through as cautiously as possible. With her enormous Physical Reaction characteristic, she was able to be more stealthy than any of them either could, or—in Luke's case—would choose to be. When she returned, she quietly closed the portal before looking at the two awake members of her party. Her beaming smile said it all, but she decided to also tell them what she had seen. “We're hundreds of miles from the border, and when I compare the map to the constellations, it looks like we're three-quarters of the way to the provincial capital already.”

“That is fantastic!” Andre twirled her around before realizing what he was doing and awkwardly setting her down. Watching them, Luke could only shake his head. It had been more than five years of real-world time, and nearly a decade of their subjective time, since they had confessed their feelings for each other. Even he had heard of taking it slow, but glaciers traveled faster than their relationship. Andre cleared his throat and tried to change the subject, putting his focus on Luke. “Sorry again about losing your waterskin.”

“Yeah, that's going to have some really interesting side effects.” Luke couldn't help but chuckle at that thought, and the flustered smile on Andre’s face was slowly replaced with questioning dread.

“Luke… why are you acting like this?” The Druid grew a half-cocked smile on his face, clearly hoping that the Murderhobo was trying to just mess with him a little bit over losing his personal possessions. “My Bloodflood Binding will be able to rectify any issues with that mana getting loose, right?”

“Probably.” Luke shrugged his shoulders, not particularly worried about that aspect of the situation. “I'm more interested to see what happens when the rest of it hits open air.”

“The rest of it? The rest of what, Luke?” Taylor joined the tête-à-tête, her concern causing the tension of the conversation to spike. “What else might happen?”

Luke shook his head, pointing at Andre accusingly. “Hey, I told him it needed to be contained. Whatever happens isn't my fault.”

“What could happen, Luke?” Taylor looked for a moment like she was about to jump at the huge man and shake the information out of him.

“Yeah… I have no idea.” Luke picked up Zed and started walking once more, assuming that, if he was going in the incorrect direction, someone would point it out to him. “I've never pulled a solid chunk of mana out while I've been on the base world. It always seemed like a really bad idea after experiencing how liquid mana explosively decompresses and kills everything around it that’s unable to survive a basic Mana Baptism. Anyway. If I've never done it, how could I possibly know what would happen?”

No one answered him or interrupted his words, so Luke merely said his peace and clammed up. “I bet it’ll be neat. Kinda wanna go back and see for myself.”