"Looks like one of Violet's pistols, at least nine times. The lightning will probably take out a few of them."

The dogs seem to hear the talking, the ears perking up.
They begin to tense to begin to run towards the two.

“Nine? Good to know.”

She looks back to creatures and casts a lighting bolt at them.

She angles her hands and releases the last lynchpins. There is a tremendous flash of light as electricity leaps to the dog things frying the first to almost to dust and hitting a third sending it flaming and blackened to the ground.

The other two dogs race past Liya for Bastion and she hears him slash with his sword and try and keep from both dogs leaping on him.

There is a trail of blood from where he hit one of the dogs.
She can see it staggering and leaking blood.

The uninjured dog sniffs the air and snarls readying to leap.

Liya turns to the uninjured dog and shoots off a few rounds at it.

There is a whimper as the second bullet strikes solid in the beast and it falls over.

Bastion looks over, "Good choice, while swords work those quills make it a bit dangerous to stab the things."

He cleans off his blade and studies the creature. "I think the road did this to them." He moves the thing a bit with the tip of his sword.

It does look like their bodies are more twisted and malformed than naturally grown up to be this way when she looks the two that are left over. The one that had been slashed dyeing of blood loss.

Liya examines the creature closet too and carefully pulls out a few quills to examine later.  “I guess you were right. I might be lucky,” she smiled.

“Besides their physical appearance, I wonder how else the road has affected them.”

"You mean their minds ? Good point might have effected their behavior. The fact they did continue to attack after that lightning is not normal for most animals. I would think that they would scatter after something like that. Either way avoid the road on this world that's for sure."

"You should refill that clip with bullets if you have spare rounds. I can refill that lightning bolt spell, you seemed to enjoy shooting that lightning bolt almost as much as I do."

"Just, let's do that thing on another world, in case your right and the road here affects the mind."

Liya nods and reloads her pistol. “Yeah, it was kind of exhilarating.  I think I’m going to have to learn to cast spells next.”

With her gun reloaded and the quill safely put away in her pack, Liya turns to Bastion. “Hot springs next, or do you want to keep following the road for while longer?”

"You search out hot springs, I will keep following the road, we don't know how long it will last, if it is permanent or temporary. When you find the springs, do what I told you with the ring and you will set it up as a destination. Then just use the trump of me, you do have a trump of me right ?"
This message was last updated by the player at 02:19, Sat 11 Feb 2023.

She nods, “Yes.  Violet made sure I had a deck before venturing out on my own. She had a few made of me as well. Do you have one yet?”

Liya takes out a trump of her and hands it to Bastion. “Here, just in case you need me. I’ll contact you as soon as I find a good place. Be safe.”

He takes the card, "Thank you for trusting me with this."

You are able to take about a couple hours to find a nice enough place away from any Black Road or the typical bad lands you usually end up following in your walk and find some hot springs in a small village. There are also enough wild hot springs you could find one away from the village you find but it is also a place you might get clothes if need be.

Liya finds a village with hot springs and clothes for them to change into afterwards. She sets up the destination in the ring then pulls out her Trump of Bastion.

It takes a bit longer then she anticipated but she gets through.

"Liya ? Ah good did you find a place?"

“I did, and set it as a destination in the ring. How’s it going with the road? I can pull you to me if you’re ready?”

"Things have been going good, still haven't come across those carriages. Wait you want me to come to you? You don't want to follow the road anymore? I was supposed to bring you to me." he looks a bit confused.

"Nice place in the background there, where you're at."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 17:12, Wed 15 Feb 2023.

She smiled, “Well I was thinking about that. See, the only quick way back here is naked. I mean, we could spend the time to get back here, but we can also use the Hydras path to find the black road and the carriages from here.  Grab a couple horses and some food to pack.”

 Liya shrugged “But you can bring me to you if you’d rather.”

Looks like he is doing some mental calculations.

"Tell you what you gather those things and set your path to find me. I will move ahead following this thing and we can meet up. I honestly don't know how long this phenomenon will last, I don't want to miss the lead we have on it. Though it does seem to leave a mark on the worlds we walk. So the after effect of it might last."

He reaches into a small side pouch and hands her a small gold bar, "In case you need it for the horses and cart."

Liya takes the gold and thanks him. “Alright, I will meet up with you as soon as I can. Contact me if you need anything in the meantime.”

She ends the connection and sets out to gather horses and supplies for the two of them then heads out to meet up with Bastion.

It is harder to find him as he is moving, and she finds moving the cart itself a new learning experience. Something to add to her repertoire of world walking skills. It requires more concentration and here her other skills especially her artists eye and attention to detail really helps. One time she comes close to a flaw in shadow and hears the low growl of the Hydra. A wheel of the cart almost goes off into the crevasse. That is when she realizes she needs to split her attention to avoid the crevacces the Hydra claims and focus on Bastion.
Part of her wonders if Bastion told her to do this as a learning experience.

Soon enough though she comes across him on a lush field of wild wheat except for where the Black Road is where the wheat is twisted and has thorns.

"Hey you made it. Nice cart, what kind of food did you pack?" I'm kind of starved." He looks the cart over and spends a little time with the horses petting them and looking at each of them.

"It's harder to go faster and move a cart isn't it?"

He moves his hand over the tops of the wild wheat. "Amber waves of grain."


This message was last edited by the player at 18:34, Thu 16 Feb 2023.

Liya smiled watching Bastion and pulled out a large cloth bag. “I thought rabbits sounded good for dinner. There’s some potatoes as well, and some oats and apples for the horses.”

She climbed down from the cart and stretched a moment. “It was a little rough in a couple places with the cart but I managed after a few adjustments to get back on track.”

She looked out across the field of wheat. “It’s kind of nice here.”

"Yes, it rather is. Best to travel when we have some light so I agree camping is probably best. These fields are nice, not much shelter but I don't see any signs of storms so we should be good."

Bastion spent some time seemingly studying the area then he conjured up some wood for a campfire and dug out a pit for it to prevent spreading any fires in this wide plane of wheat.
"So, how are you finding things ? You enjoying getting out and stretching your legs among the worlds ?"

He helped feed the horses and let them graze.

Liya began dressing the rabbits while Bastion got the campfire prepared. “I was enjoying the first world I went to, before the black road appeared and started a commotion with people. But between there and here it’s been a lot of learning. So, yeah, I’m enjoying stretching my legs among the worlds.,” she smiled.

"It is a big learning experience, that never stops. I am glad you had fun in the first world. Hopefully you can go back to that when this business is done. Still learning how to travel in a cart and keeping horses and yourself safe all the while is something that will really help you out in the future. I don't suggest trying to travel very fast you might not be able to adjust in time before hitting a crevasse. Violet and I tried in a car once, don't try it in a car." He laughs.

"Ah dinner is smelling good."