They finally arrived at Toma city once again.
Ning and Shara remained in the carriage, their hands tied with ropes, two soldiers before them sitting in their armor. They were prisoners today, just in case.
Ning began hearing the muffled sound of Romus, the handso soldier speaking decently in a Lenesian accent. His own Onyxian accent was nowhere to be found.
Ning used the Talisman of Concealnt, hiding everyone in a 10-ter radius. It didn't make them invisible or anything. It just ssed with people's perception of you and made it very easy to ignore them regardless of who or what they were.
Ning waited for a while and the carriage began moving. No one even ca looking for them. After a while, the carriage door opened and Matthew poked his head in.
"Change your clothes. They don't suspect we have prisoners," he said.
The soldiers in there were surprised. "They didn't bother checking if we were smuggling anything in here?" one asked.
"We have proper docunts from their Emperor. They have no grounds to check us even if we are smuggling sothing it seems," Matthew said. "We got lucky. Had it just been the other officer, things would've been much, much worse."
"Good to know," Ning said, taking off the old, torn clothes he was wearing and began wearing a newer one. The carriage dragged along for a while before it finally stopped in so sort of shedding.
Ning got off, letting Shara change into better clothes before coming out. "Well, isn't this fun?"
It was a shedding dedicated to the military. They were in the middle of an army camp for Lenes' soldiers.
"Don't worry, it's mostly empty," the man said. "Ad they don't know us, so we can stay hidden."
Ning nodded. "But we have to be careful," he said. "That bitch told Shara sothing about already sending a Spirit to inform others about her location. Sooner or later, they will co for us."
"They will have to find us first," Matthew said.
"Finding us should be easy for the Spirit," Ning said. "Just look for the big blue bow with magical powers. I hear spirits can pick up on traces of Spirit Artifacts."
"Shit…" Matthew said softly. "That is true. We cannot remain here for too long then."
"Buy what provisions you need to buy. Then we leave," Ning said.
Matthew nodded. "You guys stay hidden. We will deal with everything. Don't want people to recognize you since you've been here before."
Ning accepted.
The military base had rooms for guests to stay in, so Ning, Shara, and Mari went in, guarded by Matthew's soldiers. They couldn't let anyone else see them, especially Mari, so the guard was put up.
Food was brought to them while they were hungry, and soon the sky darkened as night fell.
After a few hours, Matthew walked into the room, carrying with him a large map. He rolled the map open on the floor, revealing the massive landscape sketched into the paper.
"I brought a map to make plans on what to do next," Matthew said.
Ning and Shara closed in, Mari choosing to remain out of it. She didn't have any plans of her own to make. She was like a leaf no longer attached to any branch. She went where the wind took her.
Ning looked at the map, seeing the mountain ranges they were still in the midst of. Even after traveling for 2 weeks from the other side of the mountain range, they had only crossed half of it.
The other half ran alongside the coast, but the major cities were to the west of it, on the side that wasn't as hilly.
"Here, we'll need to travel all the way to the Bay of Terror and then go down the Fool's pass from the Empire," Matthew said. "Without surprises, we should make it there in less than a month."
Ning looked at the pathway and how it crossed through many roads, despite the path being nearly 8 tis longer than the pathway through the mountain, because the traveling situation wasn't as terrible, they could make it through in a month.
However…
"That's too fast," Ning said.
"Yes. Why did you make it sound like that is a bad thing?" Matthew asked.
"Because I need ti," Ning said.
"Ti for what exactly?" Matthew asked.
"To get stronger," Ning replied. "I need ti to beco much stronger than I am right now. Also, I need ti to teach Shara about what it ans to be an Empress. She has a lot to learn about politics and ruling an Empire."
"And you can teach her that?" Matthew asked.
"You end up picking a thing or two when you've lived as long as I have," Ning said.
"For 18 years? I don't think one can just pick up knowledge like that," Matthew said. "Besides, making her an Empress is a fool's errand. You'll just end up making life harder for yourself by doing this."
"Well… I don't have a choice anymore," Ning said. "Don't ask why. I can't explain."
Matthew frowned but moved away from that topic. "Fine, but we can't afford to slow down too much when we are clearly fugitives. We are not sure how many places we can sneak in like we have here."
He pointed at a place on the map. "Around seven-tenths into our journey, we'll have to enter the Empire. At that point, our current disguises won't work anymore. They will test to see who we are."
Ning nodded. "You are right about that, but you seem to have forgotten sothing," he said.
"Forgot what?" the man asked.
"That we need to wait until winter before we enter the Fool's Pass. Or else, only death awaits us," Ning said.
Matthew paused, looking down at the maps. "Shit! I was in such a hurry to get there that I…"
"It's alright," Ning said.
"No, it's not," Matthew said. "There's still 5 months before deep winter. And unless the Bay of Terror freezes over, we cannot go through Fool's Pass at all."
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