Quoted By:
>Get on with it!
>92, 110, 54 vs. DC 70 — Success
It's really happening. It doesn't feel like it should be really happening, as you pack and repack your knapsack, shine The Sword, check in about Gil's lack of storage ("I-I-I'll... take care of it"), check in about the transfer of items between reality and manse ("Um, don't think about it too hard"), stretch, and set off. It doesn't feel like you're leaving to go blow up Headspace, even as you leave to go blow up Headspace, along the winding trail between the Landing and the Flats— the skimmer camp is the closest populated area (fish dens in the Fen notwithstanding) and the route is relatively maintained, not to mention posted with occasional lookouts. The lookouts come in twos or threes: never one, never ever one. You don't want to be alone out there.
You are not alone out there. You have Gil, who is a dependable traveling companion, if somewhat quiet— you don't know whether he's speaking to Teddy, trapped in introspection, or simply nervous. Though you keep sneaking glances at his gaze (is it focused? glassy?), you try to assume it's one of the last two.
"Gil?" you say, after a particularly long silence.
"What?"
"When I talk to Richard, do you notice? I mean, do I look any different?"
"Um... yeah. Your eye goes wobbly."
"Wobbly?"
"It sort of, um, twitches around. So I-I-I do notice. Sorry."
You've never heard of eyes being wobbly before. Gil must be jealous of your undetectable link with Richard, so different from his stupid eido-whatever. That's it.
You walk. The route is flat and free of poisonous gases, alligators, and ambushes, though you spot a massive furrow where a worm must've been and think painfully of Annie. They're more common out in the Flats than in Fenpelok, meaning Annie must've been special. Your special worm. The best worm. You'll bring her back someday.
The skimmer camp is preceded first by the mud and then by the furrows in the mud, some shallow, some deep, some populated, some stripped and left fallow. You turn your face away from the skimmers at work, but they don't care about you. They probably didn't even see you that night. Positive thinking.
On the back of the slip, Eloise had scrawled a rough pointer to Virginia's residence— you guess she has contacts within the skimmers. You are lucky enough to find Virginia, a slight, wide-eyed woman, inside. You are luckier that she'll humor a conversation.
(1/2?)
