Travel for the dynamic burning duo was otherwise uneventful and a bit grueling, mostly for Azure who was far more prone to tiring. Nonetheless, she claimed to be completely on course, and Sammy stopped asking after the second snappy response on the subject. She did not want to stop and rest, that much was clear. Sammy was exasperated and proud all at once at that.

  When Azure declared arrival at the target point, it only took an hour or so of searching to find their object of interest. It was a bit disappointing when it came down to it.

  “No, no, no!” Azure whined as she collapsed on a great tree trunk dramatically, face pressed down on the wood as she slammed her fist weakly in defeat. “Please, no!”

  “Oh, stop it,” Sammy admonished as she looked over the all-too-familiar treetop terrain at the seemingly identical structure of a black monolith ahead. “We should’ve expected it, my True Blue Baby. A monolith pointing somewhere? There wouldn’t just be one. They point to each other I bet, in order to reveal a convergence. But the point is, this is progress.”

  Azure retracted her harness arms and flipped over onto her back. She stared upward, shaking her head with an expression of self-pity. “Why? Why must I endure this torture?”

  Sighing and rolling her eyes, Sammy reached down to pick the body of Tanjhere up, which Azure allowed. Holding her in a princess carry, Sammy hauled her along as she approached the monolith.

  Much more quickly, Rallindin’s mind decoded the information, not even needing to reference the modified astrolabe directly. Any sort of ‘scene takeover’ was skipped, and Samantha felt a new heading and distance indicated to her. The same duration of travel, too.

  “It’s making a triangle,” Sammy declared. “Probably to pinpoint the center. We could just go to it now, I think, but the quasi-mystical aspects to all this probably make that an unwise play. Best to finish this out.”

  “Whatever,” Azure muttered, hugging Rallindin's cushy body more tightly. “I just want to go home.”

  Sammy fought off a smile. She’s pouting. “Alright. As long as you absorb where we need to go first. If I’m seeing this right, Mount Lump is in the triangle, though not very central.” She wheeled around and pointed with a metal harness arm. “That’s the heading to the monolith. Dead on. Got it?”

  Azure raised her head to look and nodded. “I got it.” She wriggled and put her head back over Ralli’s shoulder. “Now carry me to my bed.”

  Laughing, Sammy set out to do as instructed. “Who’s the goddess, again?”

  The incarnation of The Lover yawned. “Me. Until morning, at least.”

  Not long after setting out, she was getting calls from Azure — not even looking up — to course correct. Usually due to Samantha daydreaming, often about new spell designs. Did she have enough to make the destined ‘witchfire’ when she got back, or did she need the [Magic] domain as the final ingredient? Azure would likely have alchemical knowledge to pass on to Tashome, which would hopefully include improvements on the napalm stuff, even with technological gaps.

  Eventually, they arrived back at their cave, guarded fairly unnecessarily by several golem constructs she had to recharge every few days. There had been only one incident ever while they were away, which was a lone beetle getting stepped on when it wandered too close.

  Azure was already asleep, so Sammy tried not to wake her as she set her down in the bed. But the instant she sloooowly set her down, Azure’s eyes opened, and her grip tightened. She grunted once.

  Sighing, Sammy got into the bed, knowing snuggles had been demanded and could not be denied.

  With a pleased little smile on her face, Azure nestled Tanjhere’s head on Rallindin’s extensive bosom and quickly fell back asleep.

  Figuring her mind could use a refreshed perspective, and knowing Azure would not be happy if she managed to sneak away to do other things anyway, Samantha tried to unwind and sleep as well.

  She can get through this because of this little makeshift home I thought was totally inadequate for her fine tastes. But it’s like a getaway, like a retreat, even from our world beyond. She’s been completely content with this specifically. Us here alone. She could be here forever if she gets to be here with me. In this stinking, horrible, deadly cesspool of a reality without a single other upside. How amazing is that?

  Samantha’s brain managed to turn off for once and she slept. Perhaps Rallindin had, too.

  ??············???···········??

  “It’s official!” Sammy declared as the star positions of the monolith decoded in her mind. “This one points to the first one we found, making a triangle.”

  “Wonderful,” Azure said without energy. “So now we’ll find something worth a shit, right?”

  “We can only hope. We want to go to where these points would converge. The center. Where no doubt only the truly worthy and righteous can tread upon the holy ground of the divine!”

  Azure gave her a flat look. “Spare me, Samantha. But yes, I can do that with precision I think. Hopefully, there’s a pot of gold there.”

  “What about silver?”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Shut up.” Azure began walking off on spidery metal legs, arms crossed.

  Giggling, Sammy followed.

  The journey would be around half a day. Early on, they noted it to be terrain they were unfamiliar with, even though it was right under their nose in a regional sense. There was plenty of wildlife, though she never laid eyes on a snake. That wasn’t uncommon though, being rather sneaky beings.

  There was something subtly different about the location, one that was difficult to put her finger on. Quieter. Untouched. A feeling of Unnature being aware of them. It reminded her somewhat of the Bridge of Edges. She suspected some sort of spacial abnormality was happening like it was impossible to be there without the knowledge they held.

  Anything but direct-to-the-point reference curves around it, and you’d never know it was underneath. Like the inside of a fingernail, you just interact with the surface normally.

  To pique her curiosity, Sammy paused to go up and see what the Cat Head type for the territory was. But several minutes of observation turned up nothing. She even dared to cast a noise-making cantrip at a far distance away, to attract them. Nothing.

  Is it really barren of those souls here? We must be making progress, then.

  They continued on to the center through the mostly familiar wilderness, accentuated with a great variety of vegetation, including the prolific glowing fungus and fungal blooms of the ‘dark zones.’

  Azure just suddenly stopped at some point.

  Sammy looked around. “What? What is it?”

  “We’re here. It’s ahead, anyway.”

  Sammy squinted forward, seeing nothing but trees. “They don’t look like they form the even branch patterns of those monolith holders. Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! More sure than I was with the others. This is the dead-ass central point.” She pointed at a particular, unremarkable tree trunk. “That one, I think.”

  They moved closer, anchoring to nearby trees, though remaining out of its immediate vicinity. The trees in the area were all caked in the thick, gooey grime that was prevalent everywhere (one of the few basically harmless features of the Wyld other than the awful funk). This wasn’t unusual for those terrain features that were hard to get to by the giant worms who fed on it.

  The tree she pointed to, though, was the thickest with grime she’d ever seen, as if it had been untouched for aeons. The tree bark wasn’t even technically visible though the difference was hard to tell at a distance. Sammy exchanged a glance and a grimace with Azure, then moved one of her metal appendages into the waxy goop.

  There was a gross splorch sound as the arm went entirely through a ridiculously thick layer, and seemingly into open space.

  “Oh goddesses,” Azure exclaimed. “Please tell me there isn’t some alcove we’re supposed to go into, through a disgusting wall of-of toe jam!”

  Sammy winced at her analogy. It was terrible and made everything worse. “I think there’s an alcove through a disgusting wall of Unnature’s Ear Wax we’re supposed to go into.”

  Azure did an emphatic shiver. “Phlaungh!”

  Sammy utilized two of her metal arms to make a hole in the grime from a safe distance. Inside, instead of merely a tree, was a section of spiral staircase, and an inner core of black material like the monoliths. Reflective obsidian.

  “At least we found something in this hellscape,” Sammy said, suppressing a shiver after causing a huge glob of stuff to drop endlessly. The smell released from her efforts was eye-wateringly pungent. Dust was generated, though Azure quickly sprayed the air with some alchemical ward to keep it off of them. She gagged once.

  Because they obviously needed to go into it, Sammy forged a cylinder of Hard Light to protect them from oozing drippings and such. The confines were a bit tight for their harnesses, so Samantha put hers forward, and Azure had most of hers trailing behind.

  Sammy adjusted the cylinder into a kind of protective cab held awkwardly by two arms. Whatever it took to keep the icky stuff away. Finally, she made a little bit of light to see more clearly. With that, she began making her way upward.

  “Wait,” Azure said uncertainly, touching Sammy’s shoulder from behind. “Are you… sure we’re supposed to go… up?”

  Sammy turned to Azure and blinked. “Uhh… yes? I feel the draw in my bones. Why?”

  Azure shook her head and turned slightly to look down the steps, contemplative, with her mouth open, but not speaking. Then she glanced at her reflection, grimaced, and took Sammy’s hand. “Nevermind. Lead on, Chestnut.”

  “Azure, what do you see in your reflection?” There was no answer. “I just see you. I guess you see me, but my own reflection, to me, is my Earth self. Something I left behind.”

  Azure stared back at her for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Let’s do that then, hmm?”

  Frowning, Sammy nonetheless nodded and turned to lead on.

  It was a long, long way up the stairs, a wall of obsidian on their left and a wall of smelly ick to their right. Seemingly endless and monotonous…

  Suddenly, Sammy noticed the ambient light had increased without her manipulation. She gasped. “Azure, look!” She pointed ahead and upward, and an obvious glow could be seen bleeding through the semi-transparency of thinning ick. “Light, and it’s golden!”

  Azure barked an amazed, pleased laugh. “Yes please!”

  They picked up the pace to move out of the darkness. Indeed, the tunnel they were in completely opened up into an environment the likes they hadn’t seen for what felt like months and was at least weeks. The outer ick wall simply ended on a dime. Even the trees were cleared, just a vast, thick canopy they’d risen out of.

  It was a beautiful, alien sky of ambient glowing gold-bronze, like a hidden sun lit it up. The clouds were glittering silver and made metallic multi-hued reflections. The great spiral tower staircase wove up and up and up into heaven. High beyond and above it all appeared to be an oversized moon, gleaming white-silver like some element of higher purity. The tower appeared to connect to a greater tower on the moon, and perhaps a palace.

  A haze of something higher up made for some obscuring of fine details, however. The revelation of what that haze was mixed with another sudden understanding — under the light of that sky, her invisibility and illusions were wiped away like mud on a windshield.

  The haze became a torrent of screeches, a tumult rising higher into one of the most terrifying sounds she’d ever heard. It was a horde of flying Cat Heads, and upon noticing an ‘invader,’ they were coming down.

  “Oh shit,” Sammy muttered.

  Quests and mysterious towers go together like sausages and buns.

  Next Chapter...

  More wurst than a German Barbeque. No, I didn't spell it that way, but I should have.

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