"Peanuts?" Julius offered.
Elda and Leo declined and resumed their conversation. Meanwhile, Leona lunged at the snack with enthusiasm.
>
"Peep!"
We've been on the road for nearly four hours already. Of course, I'm starving.
She failed to note that we had lunch but two hours ago. I watched with curiosity as she devoured the peanuts in Julius' hands. Based on his expression, I suspected that he meant to share, not give up all his peanuts in their entirety.
I had intended to leave Leona behind at the Frey Manor with Fin, but ultimately, I changed my mind and brought her along. Given that she was captured the two other times she was away from me, I wasn't keen on traveling too far away from her and preferred her to come along. Ironically, I was also using Elda's same faulty logic that we wouldn't run into anyone in the Desolated Expanse Desert and thus that it would be safe.
That said, the desert garnered little interest for most, with only monks living on the land, and the road we were taking was rarely traveled, with not a single carriage in sight since lunch.
"Why are we stopping?" Leo asked.
We gazed out the carriage windows and saw we were at the edge of the desert. Vast, sun-scorched dunes of sand stretched as far as the eye could see, contrasting against the deep blue sky. Nearby sat a few tiny houses, their clay walls embedded with cooling mana stones. Several of the inhabitants emerged from these dwellings to assist us. Their faces were wrinkled and tanned, bearing the marks of this harsh environment.
"They need to switch out the wheels," Elda explained. "We'll be driving into the desert and off-road entirely, so they need to adjust the wheels to the proper type."
She pulled out several coins from her pocket and handed them to one of the men who came by. The glint of silver flashed in the harsh sunlight as the exchange took place.
"Also, our horses aren't suitable for the terrain. We need to switch to a more capable animal to pull us through," Elda continued and pointed to what appeared to be enormous ostriches with brilliantly hued purple and blue feathers atop their heads.
"Are those birds?" Leo asked, and his eyes widened. It was apparent he had never seen a desert strider before.
In truth, it was my first time as well; I had barely ever ventured out of Genise my entire life. The twins, despite having lived a shorter amount of time, were far more well-traveled than me. It was ironic, given that I had overseen a cross-continental merchant guild. But to be fair, I did drive the business to the ground.
Perhaps I ought to take a vacation and explore my world a bit. Going to this desert is a decent start.
"They're desert striders," Elda explained to Leo. "Jarvis can explain them better than me, but they're native to the Desolated Expanse Desert and one of the only creatures you will find living here. These have been domesticated to help pull carriages across, but we might see them in the wild too, albeit they're concentrated farther east. They're slower than horses, but they can move through the desert far better."
Leo frowned.
"That seems tedious and an area that could be improved. Carriages ought to have wheels capable of moving through various terrains. And instead of relying on animals, why can't we have a mechanism to allow carriages to move without needing to rest and at a more efficient pace?" he said, thinking aloud.
Elda's eyes lit up. "You think so, too, right?"
I knew what was coming.
"I have these ancient blueprints for a vehicle that is pure machine. It's in a language that I do not understand, so I've been struggling to make progress on it. But perhaps you can reverse engineer the designs?" Elda said.
She didn't mention the part she was most excited about this machine. Apparently, it had a cannon to shoot out blasts.
"Sure, I'd love to take a look," Leo replied.
The two continued their lively discussion regarding this vehicle. In my original life, Elda had never made any real progress regarding the mechanical carriage. Still, perhaps with Leo's insight and ability as a Magical Inventor, he could help reverse engineer the design.
I smiled, watching the two kids converse.
I had prevented Sarka Jarbez from being taken in by the Spiders Syndicate and brought into the Frey Merchant Guild's fold with the sole expectation of benefiting from her inventions. Never had I imagined that her son would be such a perfect friend for Elda.
My sister most certainly was no loner. She had friends, but they were several years older and were more along the lines of colleagues rather than actual friends. Leo, on the other hand, was actually her own age. He could pace with her ideation and thinking but, like her, was still just a kid.
"Tut-tut!" Our driver called out, and the carriage rumbled back into motion.
I gazed toward one of the nearby sheds and saw our carriage's horses, along with those that our guards had ridden here, lapping enthusiastically at a bin of water.
I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of Henry. Bobbing atop one of the desert striders, he wore an oversized disk-like hat. It protected him from the harsh sun above, but it was quite an unusual addition to his attire.
The ride itself could have been more pleasant. The desert riders had a habit of tugging the carriage forward in bursts. Not to mention, instead of continuing down the road that would have brought us across the desert and shortly out, we turned west and charged into the depths of the sun-scorched land.
Elda's mechanical carriage could prove most beneficial if it can be made a reality.
***
"Julius, can you also see the Wobbly Pebble from here?" Elda inquired, a pair of binoculars in her hands. The sun glinted off the glass of their lenses.
We were in a sort of naturally formed trench, with the earth at eye level for myself and the other adults when standing. Elda and Leo, being children, stood on additional rocks to be able to look over themselves.
I squinted into the distance with my bare eyes, unable to distinguish the pebble from a speck of dust on the desertscape. It didn't help that the further out you looked, the air had a fuzzy characteristic caused by gases being released from the desert floor. This gas was benign and posed no health risk, but it made it difficult to look far out. The edge of the desert could be just a short carriage ride away, but the gases obscured one's view, making you think the desert went on forever. This gas was scentless and numbed one's senses to any other smells as well; it was probably the core reason why The Ogre escaped into the Desolated Expanse Desert in the first place.
However, Julius, with a pair of his own binoculars, nodded his head. "I can."
"And, more importantly, will you be able to cut it from this distance?" Elda refined her question.
"Yes." Julius nodded his head again.
"Peep!"
I could cut it from here too.
Leona added. Given the lack of anyone else in this desert except for us, I allowed her out of my jacket's inner pocket. The heat didn't seem to bother her one bit; unlike the rest of us, she sat out in the direct sun instead of in the shade of the small rock formation behind us.
"Wonderful!" Elda grinned, lowering her binoculars. "We're in business."
"Elda, we're too close to it," Leo said, not sharing her enthusiastic sentiment. "The other place was safer."
"The other place was too far for the mage to do anything," Elda retorted. "How's the measurement anyhow?"
"We're 1848 skulls away," Leo replied, holding up some sort of strange contraption, likely designed by himself or his mother.
My sister lifted her binoculars again and gazed out at the spot where we had set down the Wobbly Pebble. "That's three times the distance for any of my previous tests."
"That might be so, but this test is unlike anything you've done before. I couldn't even calculate the expected energy expansion from slicing through the Wobbly Pebble. I had to estimate all of those calculations."
"Well, what does your math say? Is this a safe distance?" Elda asked.
"Yes, but the margin of error is one percent—"
"What you're saying is that your confidence level that we're in the clear is ninety-nine percent," Elda retorted. "That means we may be even safer than your calculation assumes. And this is a distance Julis can slice it open; without him being able to do so, the entire test is a flop."
Leo bit his thumb's nail, a habit I noticed whenever he was nervous.
"Alright, everyone, you know the drill." Elda lowered the binoculars and called out to the accompanying guards, taking Leo's lack of response as approval. Two guards came over and set up what appeared to be three small rockets.
"This area has no inhabitants, but it doesn't hurt to make sure by doing a perimeter check," Elda explained. "This is meant to be fun, after all. Not end in any unintended deaths."
I nodded in approval at her wise precautions.
WOOOSH!
The first of the rockets launched into the sky, slightly angled toward the Wobbly Pebble. Just as I didn't think the rocket could go up any higher, a small white parachute unfurled and gently brought the rocket back to the ground.
One of the guards jumped on his desert rider and rode off in the direction the contraption was falling.
WOOOSH!
Elda set off the second and third rockets in succession, and another two guards took off into the desert.
"It helps to have a couple—the image comes out blurry sometimes," she explained.
"Image?" Leo asked. He looked at my sister in wonder, seemingly forgetting his earlier qualms about the test.
Elda smiled slyly at him. "Yes. This gadget has a small explosion that occurs inside when it reaches the top, and the dispersion of light and dark below gets imprinted into the thin metal sheet. I haven't come up with a name yet for it."
Some time passed before the three riders returned, with one lagging.
Elda stood with her arms crossed and a serious expression on her face as the last rider returned and whispered into her ear. She appeared displeased by whatever he conveyed.
"Leo, what would happen if we were, say, two hundred skulls away from where the Wobbly Pebble is set to explode?" she asked.
"What do you mean what would happen?" Leo looked at her incredulously. "We'd all be dead. Or at least heavily injured."
"Good—thank you," Elda replied and turned to the rest of the guards. "We're in the clear to go. Move the carriage behind one of the rock formations and tie down the desert riders well to prevent them from running off again."
Again?
I blinked.
How frequently had my sister tested one of her explosives in this desert?
I had gathered from previous conversations that she had done this several times. And given the efficiency of the guards in moving everything into place, save for Henry, who appeared to be in everyone's way, they had done this at least a dozen times.
"For your protection." The carriage driver produced several black glass face visors and handed them to us.
Elda, Leo, and the accompanying men and women donned and secured the visors over their faces.
"What is this for?" I asked her. The glass was so black I could barely see the sun through it.
"To avoid damaging your eyes," Elda replied. "The flash of light following a detonation can sometimes be too bright for human eyes to handle–imagine staring directly into the sun, and you'll understand what this is meant to prevent."
"Got it." I pulled on the visor and, to my amazement, could look up at the sun in the sky without any qualms at all.
I motioned for Leona to come over.
Elda then handed me a piece of yellow putty. "For the sound. You put it in your ears."
It had a very squishy and dough-like quality.
I pushed the yellow putty into Leona's ears first and then my own. Just as I lifted Leona inside my visor, beside my left cheek, I overheard, in a muted voice, Elda asking Julius if he was ready to blow up the Wobbly Pebble.
What I realized I failed to mention to Elda was that Julius was born-ready. We were lucky he didn't blow up the Wobbly Pebble earlier when Elda asked if he could reach it.
A bright flash of light appeared, bright enough for me to see through my black visor. I forgot that I even had it on. The sky momentarily transforms into a blinding white, as if a second sun appeared in the east and had expanded to consume the world. Even when I shut my eyes, the intense light seemed to seep through my eyelids, casting an eerie, otherworldly glow.
Then, within moments, the brightness gave way to vivid and surreal colors in the sky. A shimmering fireball rose, radiating in purple, blue, orange, and white, surrounded by a halo of roiling, crimson clouds. The shape was reminiscent of a bizarre flower in bloom.
"Peep!"
Just what is this?? That came out from that tiny pebble?
Leona continued to yell out comments of amazement and horror regarding the ensuing destruction ahead of us but remained tightly perched within my visor.
Strangely, aside from Leona's voice in my mind, I initially didn't hear anything at all, naively assuming that the ear putty was working so well. It was as if the world had been muted in its entirety. But then, a thunderous roar engulfed us. The sound was a deep and eerie rumble that vibrated through the desert floor and down to the depths of my bones.
I looked over toward Elda, worried for her well-being, but she had the biggest grin imaginable.
I sighed in relief.
But then the blue notifications came in.
[ Warning. You have been poisoned. ]
[ Multiple additional health penalties in place. ]
[ Poison Identifier in effect. ]
[ The air is poisoned. The poison level is: High ]
[ Poison Identifier level too low to comprehend poison type. ]
A slew of blue screens continued to pop up before me.
[ Your health is dropping at 1 point per second. 299/300 HP remaining. ]
[ Additional health penalty in place. Your total maximum HP has been permanently reduced to a new baseline of 250 HP. ]
[ Update. ]
[ Your health is dropping at 1 point per minute. 248/250 HP remaining. ]
As the roaring sound faded away, I felt a gust of hot, dry wind followed by a sudden drop in temperature. In the distance, the fireball took on a new form, that of a mushroom cloud that spread like a vicious storm.
There was a gritty and metallic taste that lingered in my mouth, and I became acutely aware of my breathing, which felt shallow and inefficient.
[ Update. ]
[ Your health is dropping at 1 point per hour. 247/250 HP remaining. ]
[ Additional health penalty in place. Your maximum HP will permanently continue to drop at 1 point per hour as long as you continue being in contact with the poison. ]
However, that wasn't what I was staring at.
There was a streak of blood coming out of Elda's nose.
AlekAundra
When life gives you a wobbly pebble... make mushrooms.
(⌐■_■) ⁺˚⋆｡°₊
Thanks for reading and commenting!
As usual, you can read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon.
"Peanuts?" Julius offered.
Elda and Leo declined and resumed their conversation. Meanwhile, Leona lunged at the snack with enthusiasm.
>
"Peep!"
We've been on the road for nearly four hours already. Of course, I'm starving.
She failed to note that we had lunch but two hours ago. I watched with curiosity as she devoured the peanuts in Julius' hands. Based on his expression, I suspected that he meant to share, not give up all his peanuts in their entirety.
I had intended to leave Leona behind at the Frey Manor with Fin, but ultimately, I changed my mind and brought her along. Given that she was captured the two other times she was away from me, I wasn't keen on traveling too far away from her and preferred her to come along. Ironically, I was also using Elda's same faulty logic that we wouldn't run into anyone in the Desolated Expanse Desert and thus that it would be safe.
That said, the desert garnered little interest for most, with only monks living on the land, and the road we were taking was rarely traveled, with not a single carriage in sight since lunch.
"Why are we stopping?" Leo asked.
We gazed out the carriage windows and saw we were at the edge of the desert. Vast, sun-scorched dunes of sand stretched as far as the eye could see, contrasting against the deep blue sky. Nearby sat a few tiny houses, their clay walls embedded with cooling mana stones. Several of the inhabitants emerged from these dwellings to assist us. Their faces were wrinkled and tanned, bearing the marks of this harsh environment.
"They need to switch out the wheels," Elda explained. "We'll be driving into the desert and off-road entirely, so they need to adjust the wheels to the proper type."
She pulled out several coins from her pocket and handed them to one of the men who came by. The glint of silver flashed in the harsh sunlight as the exchange took place.
"Also, our horses aren't suitable for the terrain. We need to switch to a more capable animal to pull us through," Elda continued and pointed to what appeared to be enormous ostriches with brilliantly hued purple and blue feathers atop their heads.
"Are those birds?" Leo asked, and his eyes widened. It was apparent he had never seen a desert strider before.
In truth, it was my first time as well; I had barely ever ventured out of Genise my entire life. The twins, despite having lived a shorter amount of time, were far more well-traveled than me. It was ironic, given that I had overseen a cross-continental merchant guild. But to be fair, I did drive the business to the ground.
Perhaps I ought to take a vacation and explore my world a bit. Going to this desert is a decent start.
"They're desert striders," Elda explained to Leo. "Jarvis can explain them better than me, but they're native to the Desolated Expanse Desert and one of the only creatures you will find living here. These have been domesticated to help pull carriages across, but we might see them in the wild too, albeit they're concentrated farther east. They're slower than horses, but they can move through the desert far better."
Leo frowned.
"That seems tedious and an area that could be improved. Carriages ought to have wheels capable of moving through various terrains. And instead of relying on animals, why can't we have a mechanism to allow carriages to move without needing to rest and at a more efficient pace?" he said, thinking aloud.
Elda's eyes lit up. "You think so, too, right?"
I knew what was coming.
"I have these ancient blueprints for a vehicle that is pure machine. It's in a language that I do not understand, so I've been struggling to make progress on it. But perhaps you can reverse engineer the designs?" Elda said.
She didn't mention the part she was most excited about this machine. Apparently, it had a cannon to shoot out blasts.
"Sure, I'd love to take a look," Leo replied.
The two continued their lively discussion regarding this vehicle. In my original life, Elda had never made any real progress regarding the mechanical carriage. Still, perhaps with Leo's insight and ability as a Magical Inventor, he could help reverse engineer the design.
I smiled, watching the two kids converse.
I had prevented Sarka Jarbez from being taken in by the Spiders Syndicate and brought into the Frey Merchant Guild's fold with the sole expectation of benefiting from her inventions. Never had I imagined that her son would be such a perfect friend for Elda.
My sister most certainly was no loner. She had friends, but they were several years older and were more along the lines of colleagues rather than actual friends. Leo, on the other hand, was actually her own age. He could pace with her ideation and thinking but, like her, was still just a kid.
"Tut-tut!" Our driver called out, and the carriage rumbled back into motion.
I gazed toward one of the nearby sheds and saw our carriage's horses, along with those that our guards had ridden here, lapping enthusiastically at a bin of water.
I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of Henry. Bobbing atop one of the desert striders, he wore an oversized disk-like hat. It protected him from the harsh sun above, but it was quite an unusual addition to his attire.
The ride itself could have been more pleasant. The desert riders had a habit of tugging the carriage forward in bursts. Not to mention, instead of continuing down the road that would have brought us across the desert and shortly out, we turned west and charged into the depths of the sun-scorched land.
Elda's mechanical carriage could prove most beneficial if it can be made a reality.
***
"Julius, can you also see the Wobbly Pebble from here?" Elda inquired, a pair of binoculars in her hands. The sun glinted off the glass of their lenses.
We were in a sort of naturally formed trench, with the earth at eye level for myself and the other adults when standing. Elda and Leo, being children, stood on additional rocks to be able to look over themselves.
I squinted into the distance with my bare eyes, unable to distinguish the pebble from a speck of dust on the desertscape. It didn't help that the further out you looked, the air had a fuzzy characteristic caused by gases being released from the desert floor. This gas was benign and posed no health risk, but it made it difficult to look far out. The edge of the desert could be just a short carriage ride away, but the gases obscured one's view, making you think the desert went on forever. This gas was scentless and numbed one's senses to any other smells as well; it was probably the core reason why The Ogre escaped into the Desolated Expanse Desert in the first place.
However, Julius, with a pair of his own binoculars, nodded his head. "I can."
"And, more importantly, will you be able to cut it from this distance?" Elda refined her question.
"Yes." Julius nodded his head again.
"Peep!"
I could cut it from here too.
Leona added. Given the lack of anyone else in this desert except for us, I allowed her out of my jacket's inner pocket. The heat didn't seem to bother her one bit; unlike the rest of us, she sat out in the direct sun instead of in the shade of the small rock formation behind us.
"Wonderful!" Elda grinned, lowering her binoculars. "We're in business."
"Elda, we're too close to it," Leo said, not sharing her enthusiastic sentiment. "The other place was safer."
"The other place was too far for the mage to do anything," Elda retorted. "How's the measurement anyhow?"
"We're 1848 skulls away," Leo replied, holding up some sort of strange contraption, likely designed by himself or his mother.
My sister lifted her binoculars again and gazed out at the spot where we had set down the Wobbly Pebble. "That's three times the distance for any of my previous tests."
"That might be so, but this test is unlike anything you've done before. I couldn't even calculate the expected energy expansion from slicing through the Wobbly Pebble. I had to estimate all of those calculations."
"Well, what does your math say? Is this a safe distance?" Elda asked.
"Yes, but the margin of error is one percent—"
"What you're saying is that your confidence level that we're in the clear is ninety-nine percent," Elda retorted. "That means we may be even safer than your calculation assumes. And this is a distance Julis can slice it open; without him being able to do so, the entire test is a flop."
Leo bit his thumb's nail, a habit I noticed whenever he was nervous.
"Alright, everyone, you know the drill." Elda lowered the binoculars and called out to the accompanying guards, taking Leo's lack of response as approval. Two guards came over and set up what appeared to be three small rockets.
"This area has no inhabitants, but it doesn't hurt to make sure by doing a perimeter check," Elda explained. "This is meant to be fun, after all. Not end in any unintended deaths."
I nodded in approval at her wise precautions.
WOOOSH!
The first of the rockets launched into the sky, slightly angled toward the Wobbly Pebble. Just as I didn't think the rocket could go up any higher, a small white parachute unfurled and gently brought the rocket back to the ground.
One of the guards jumped on his desert rider and rode off in the direction the contraption was falling.
WOOOSH!
Elda set off the second and third rockets in succession, and another two guards took off into the desert.
"It helps to have a couple—the image comes out blurry sometimes," she explained.
"Image?" Leo asked. He looked at my sister in wonder, seemingly forgetting his earlier qualms about the test.
Elda smiled slyly at him. "Yes. This gadget has a small explosion that occurs inside when it reaches the top, and the dispersion of light and dark below gets imprinted into the thin metal sheet. I haven't come up with a name yet for it."
Some time passed before the three riders returned, with one lagging.
Elda stood with her arms crossed and a serious expression on her face as the last rider returned and whispered into her ear. She appeared displeased by whatever he conveyed.
"Leo, what would happen if we were, say, two hundred skulls away from where the Wobbly Pebble is set to explode?" she asked.
"What do you mean what would happen?" Leo looked at her incredulously. "We'd all be dead. Or at least heavily injured."
"Good—thank you," Elda replied and turned to the rest of the guards. "We're in the clear to go. Move the carriage behind one of the rock formations and tie down the desert riders well to prevent them from running off again."
Again?
I blinked.
How frequently had my sister tested one of her explosives in this desert?
I had gathered from previous conversations that she had done this several times. And given the efficiency of the guards in moving everything into place, save for Henry, who appeared to be in everyone's way, they had done this at least a dozen times.
"For your protection." The carriage driver produced several black glass face visors and handed them to us.
Elda, Leo, and the accompanying men and women donned and secured the visors over their faces.
"What is this for?" I asked her. The glass was so black I could barely see the sun through it.
"To avoid damaging your eyes," Elda replied. "The flash of light following a detonation can sometimes be too bright for human eyes to handle–imagine staring directly into the sun, and you'll understand what this is meant to prevent."
"Got it." I pulled on the visor and, to my amazement, could look up at the sun in the sky without any qualms at all.
I motioned for Leona to come over.
Elda then handed me a piece of yellow putty. "For the sound. You put it in your ears."
It had a very squishy and dough-like quality.
I pushed the yellow putty into Leona's ears first and then my own. Just as I lifted Leona inside my visor, beside my left cheek, I overheard, in a muted voice, Elda asking Julius if he was ready to blow up the Wobbly Pebble.
What I realized I failed to mention to Elda was that Julius was born-ready. We were lucky he didn't blow up the Wobbly Pebble earlier when Elda asked if he could reach it.
A bright flash of light appeared, bright enough for me to see through my black visor. I forgot that I even had it on. The sky momentarily transforms into a blinding white, as if a second sun appeared in the east and had expanded to consume the world. Even when I shut my eyes, the intense light seemed to seep through my eyelids, casting an eerie, otherworldly glow.
Then, within moments, the brightness gave way to vivid and surreal colors in the sky. A shimmering fireball rose, radiating in purple, blue, orange, and white, surrounded by a halo of roiling, crimson clouds. The shape was reminiscent of a bizarre flower in bloom.
"Peep!"
Just what is this?? That came out from that tiny pebble?
Leona continued to yell out comments of amazement and horror regarding the ensuing destruction ahead of us but remained tightly perched within my visor.
Strangely, aside from Leona's voice in my mind, I initially didn't hear anything at all, naively assuming that the ear putty was working so well. It was as if the world had been muted in its entirety. But then, a thunderous roar engulfed us. The sound was a deep and eerie rumble that vibrated through the desert floor and down to the depths of my bones.
I looked over toward Elda, worried for her well-being, but she had the biggest grin imaginable.
I sighed in relief.
But then the blue notifications came in.
[ Warning. You have been poisoned. ]
[ Multiple additional health penalties in place. ]
[ Poison Identifier in effect. ]
[ The air is poisoned. The poison level is: High ]
[ Poison Identifier level too low to comprehend poison type. ]
A slew of blue screens continued to pop up before me.
[ Your health is dropping at 1 point per second. 299/300 HP remaining. ]
[ Additional health penalty in place. Your total maximum HP has been permanently reduced to a new baseline of 250 HP. ]
[ Update. ]
[ Your health is dropping at 1 point per minute. 248/250 HP remaining. ]
As the roaring sound faded away, I felt a gust of hot, dry wind followed by a sudden drop in temperature. In the distance, the fireball took on a new form, that of a mushroom cloud that spread like a vicious storm.
There was a gritty and metallic taste that lingered in my mouth, and I became acutely aware of my breathing, which felt shallow and inefficient.
[ Update. ]
[ Your health is dropping at 1 point per hour. 247/250 HP remaining. ]
[ Additional health penalty in place. Your maximum HP will permanently continue to drop at 1 point per hour as long as you continue being in contact with the poison. ]
However, that wasn't what I was staring at.
There was a streak of blood coming out of Elda's nose.
AlekAundra
When life gives you a wobbly pebble... make mushrooms.
(⌐■_■) ⁺˚⋆｡°₊
Thanks for reading and commenting!
As usual, you can read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon.
