Road Trip Continues

We are now back on the road for the third day. A veil of morning mist sits on the dirt path. It's not heavy enough to hinder my visibility much, but it makes the endless woods even more… endless.

Faye has opened up a lot more since last night, so has Lohikaarmi. The three of them are chatting away in the cabin behind me.

"Who was the strongest opponent you had to go up against?" I hear Faye ask.

"My Master," Lohikaarmi says.

"Right, yeah, but what about out of the ones you defeated?"

"Dragons do not have names, with the exception of me, so I can not tell you exactly, but it is the dragon told by Old Man Finor."

"The legendary Ice Dragon?"

"It is also legendary?"

"Well, not as legendary as the Inferno Dragon, but it's said to be one of the only two dragons who can wound the Inferno Dragon in battle."

"Who is the other one?" Lohikaarmi asks.

"The Lightning Dragon," Faye says.

"That is not a real dragon."

"What?"

"I believe it is merely a myth. I have never encountered a dragon with any features relating to lightning."

"Aw, but the stories are so cool," Faye says.

"I am sorry to disappoint you."

"Disappoint? I am talking to the actual Inferno Dragon from the legends right now, I am not disappointed."

"You do know that the Inferno Dragon isn't her real name, right?" Astra says.

"Oh, right, that's a name we came up with, what is Lohikaarmi's actual name?" Faye asks.

"I am called the Dragon Queen," Lohikaarmi says.

"Whoa, that's so cool. By who, though?" Faye asks.

"No one, but the dragons see me as their queen."

"That's even cooler," Faye says and giggles, "Tell me about you, Astra."

"Me?" Astra asks.

"Yeah, what's your world like?"

Oh, this is going to be funny.

"Ah…" Astra says, "In my world, we have balls that can blow up."

"Huh?"

"Yep, there are balls that blow up, and there are people talking in our ears, and…"

As much as I want to listen to Astra keep guessing things on Earth, I don't want her to come across as too suspicious. I turn around to the window.

"Let me tell you about our world, Faye," I say.

"Yes, please," she says and smiles.

"Our world is called Earth. It's basically the same as Terradivina, but no elves, no Goddess, no Theocracy, not anymore, at least. Now imagine Terradivina like that, but four hundred years pass."

"It's pretty difficult to imagine," Faye says.

"Yeah, I guess, but all you need to know is that I was the richest person on Earth."

"Oh, were you like the pope?"

"Not exactly."

"So what did you do?"

"I owned a company."

"Like a merchant?" Faye asks.

"That's right, like a merchant. And many, many other merchants work for me. My company is responsible for everything: the food, the medicine, the buildings, the clothes, the tools. For everything that you do in my world, my company made that possible."

"That's amazing."

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"It's a shame that Earth is dying," Faye says.

"We have no one to blame but ourselves."

A wheel of the carriage bumps into a rock and the cabin jumps upward.

"Whoa," I say and turn around to the road.

There wasn't a single rock for the whole way, where did this one come from?

It looks like we have reached a rocky part of the journey. There are many of them sticking out of the ground ahead. The woods around are also beginning to get thinner and thinner. The fog has cleared, and the bright blue sky is back.

In the distant horizon past the treetops, I see the outline of a literally mountainous protrusion out from the earth. I mean literally. It's a mountain range, spanning from one end of the horizon to the other with no end in sight.

The peaks of these mountains are white, covered in what's presumably snow. It's a bit too far to tell how big they are, but they definitely are not the typical taiga hills.

I turn back to the window and ask, "Astra, do you know what that is?"

"What?"

She stands up and peeks her head out.

"Have you never seen a mountain?" She asks.

"No, I know what they are. I am asking if you have seen them before."

"Oh, yeah, it's the Cimavetta Highlands. The Holy Capital is right on the other side."

"Finally," I say.

"Don't let your guard down, though, crossing the Cimavetta is no simple task."

"Well, the slave trader did it, didn't he?" I ask.

"You don't know if he came from the Holy Capital."

"This is the only path."

"If you know the area well enough, you can cut through the woods. There are many paths in the forest," Astra says.

"I see, so how are we going to cross, then?"

"There should be a human village at the base of both sides of the Cimavetta. They will provide you with what you need."

"Alright, sounds good. Tell the others what's about to happen."

"Okay."

Astra slides back into the cabin.

A human village, huh? This will be the first one. I have never personally seen a human since I came to Eden, not an alive one, at least. The mountains are still far. They are no more than a silhouette in the atmosphere right now, but we can probably arrive before nightfall.

"Is there a function to message Cisca?" I ask the comms.

A text pops up, and it reads, "TEXTING CISCA. CONTENT:".

How convenient. I ought to use the voice commands more.

"We will be arriving in a human village shortly, and after crossing a mountain range, we will reach the Holy Capital."

As I talk, my words pop up and populate the text field.

"Send."

A spinning circle appears, and a second later, the text changes to, "SENT."

"The Cimavetta?" I hear Faye say after Astra tells them what our next destination is.

"Yeah, have you heard of it?" Astra asks.

"Yes. I actually have a cousin who just came back from there."

"Oh, really? I thought it was a human settlement," Astra says.

"I believe it was a while ago, but because of the traffic of elves coming in and out, it became mixed."

"Huh, I didn't know about that."

What a Goddess.

"I have also been there," Lohikaarmi says.

"You too? I didn't know dragons care about humans. How many things do I not know?" Astra says.

"I am not referring to the village. I have been to the Cimavetta Highlands."

"To do what?" Faye asks.

"It was during my quest to conquer the dragons across the land a few hundred years ago. Cimavetta is home to some of the fiercest dragons I have fought. It is where what you call the Ice Dragon comes from."

"Yeah, I've heard of stories about dragons attacking travelers near the Cimavetta, but it's pretty rare, isn't it?" Faye says.

"Indeed. We dragons do not attack humans unless they attack first, but sometimes, smaller dragons see humans as threats when they trespass upon their territory."

"We just have to make sure to not do that, huh?" Faye says.

"No worries, we got the Dragon Queen on our side," Astra says.

"Right."