Sea Travel

"Oliver, pass me your bag."

Reaching over to the side of one of the back seats, I pressed a button and a loud click sounded as the locks attaching the backs of the seats detached. Then, pushing the seat back down to an angle, I paused to allow the luggage to fit underneath. I then took Oliver's bag from him and placed them on the seat.

"According to the car manual, this is where we will be sitting and sleeping for our journey through the sea."

Sazzy and Ava were helping arrange the luggage inside the car, away from the view of the cameras.

As Sazzy moved Oliver's bag slowly front, she continued where I left off.

[We also brought a portable stove and a small little washer and dryer for the clothes. These will most likely be placed at the back of the car where the storage usually is.]

With a click, Ava removed the backs for the front seats and placed them at the sides.

"Once we move everything inside, we can put the less needed items below the seats and then seal up that space by attaching the seat backs between the front and back seat. This will give us a larger space to sit."

I held out my hand and supported Oliver into the back area of the car. Then, using all my strength, I hauled my large luggage bag into the back storage of the car. Finally, I brought the stove, washer and dryer in, and we could go.

Closing the back door, I re-entered the car from the front and we drove into the sea.

Once we had entered the water, Sazzy reached out from behind me and pressed the autopilot button.

I turned around to see Oliver and Ava had already affixed the seat backs, making a solid space for the four of us to sit on while we stored our things underneath. And there was a small hole in the middle for us to access our things.

[This whole journey is going to take us around 3 to 4 days, so we better get comfortable!]

Sazzy announced as she fiddled around with the controls of the car. Soon, there was a whirring sound as the top of the car retracted and the sides shortened enough that we could see the ocean, but didn't have to worry that the waves would wash us, or our items, into the ocean.

"Wow!"

Holding the edge of the side, Oliver stuck his head out. I could feel a small smile creep up at this sight, and when I turned my head I saw Ava also had the same feeling. The only one who wasn't fazed was Sazzy, who had now moved to fiddling with the stove.

Sticking my hand into my pocket, I fished out my fishing net and handed it to Sazzy. She affixed it to the back of the car.

[Alright! Now we just wait for 3 to 4 days!]

Ava cheered as she moved right next to Oliver. She then started to whisper into his ear.

Nodding, Oliver reluctantly tore himself away from the side and huddled together with Ava, overlooking her personal terminal.

I reached into the small hole between the seat backs and groped around for a small bag. Pulling it out, I glanced at its color. It was a purple bag. Can't touch that.

Placing back the purple bag, which held all our emergency supplies, I widened my search area and grabbed another bag. Pulling it out, this bag was yellow in color.

Opening this bag, I took out several bowls. Then lining up these bowls beside me, I reached deeper into the bag to retrieve the ingredients I wanted to experiment with.

Since I wouldn't be able to get any extra ingredients if I used them all up, I poured a little bit of my chosen ingredient into the containers. About just enough such that if I could use them several times a day and not run out by the time we arrived.

[Are you going to be experimenting to pass time?]

I heard Sazzy's voice just as I finished pouring the ingredients and looked up.

"Finished tinkering with the stove?"

[Hey! I was just making sure everything was set up!]

"It's a portable stove, there's nothing to set up."

[....but what if the battery dies midway? What are we going to do? Make a fire to cook our food?]

Fair point.

After having a little fun bicker with Sazzy, I showed her the ingredients I ordered before we left and what I was planning to achieve in these short 3 to 4 days.

"This is the 'fruit' of the Lilac plant. It looks like a mutated corn cob though. The little pits here are actually where the small flowers were before they fell off. I wanted to buy the flowers too, since I saw some recipes online using them. But the flowers have too short a shelf life to be sold fresh. So I got these ones instead."

I passed the fruit to Sazzy, who ran her finger through the pits with a disgusted expression on her face.

[It looks...unappetizing.]

Sazzy shoved the fruit back into my hand and peered at the other ingredients.

[What experiment are you going to do?]

"I'm planning on making my own version of this recipe online, known as Devil's soup. Mostly because the soup is black in color and it's incredibly spicy. But since Oliver can't handle the full spice, I'm going to use the soup to just season the main dish for today. Which is the fish we are cooking later."

Placing the ingredients aside, I glanced at the fishing net to check if we caught anything.

[What if the fish later doesn't work?]

"Then I'll just move forward one of the dishes I plan to cook tomorrow to fill that hole."

Seeing that the net was empty, I retracted my head and took up the ingredients again. I then moved over to the stove using my knees. There was already a pot there so I just poured some of the clean water we prepared into it to boil.

"First we make a sort of base with the fruit of the Lilac plant. By the way, the plant is called a Lilac plant because someone named Lilac discovered it. She then thought it was ugly, and threw it at the mayor's son. The mayor's son was somewhat of a botanist. And so-

[And so he named it after her?]

"Yep. In the description of the wiki for the Lilac plant, there is even a quote describing it. Since it's beautiful when it's flowering, but ugly when it's not, he said that it was the perfect plant describing the ugly nature of some people who seem attractive. He even says that 'once the flowers are gone, you can see that all they have left are empty holes to fill.'"

[I like his revenge style.]

Laughing, I broke the fruit into two. But before I threw it in, I showed Sazzy the core of the fruit.

"Another interesting thing is that the fruit of this 'fruit' grows inside the hole instead of outside."

The middle of the 'fruit' had small brown balls that branched off from where the hole originated. The rest of the inside was hollow.

[I'm guessing he didn't pass up this other chance at revenge by calling her a hollow person. But the way the balls stick onto the walls really don't scream 'I am edible'. It screams more of 'I am not edible'. Whoever tried to cook this, I wonder what went through their minds.]

I threw the two pieces into the pot. Then, I took out a small brown star shaped ingredient. And I threw that in as well.

"That is a dirt star, which contrary to its name tastes sweet and is used as a snack. It can be eaten raw, but cooking it makes it softer and more squishy. It also adds a lot of flavor to the soup."

After the dirt star was a pinch of clam powder and some sun dust.

"Now we wait for it to boil. This is the spicy base for the soup. Usually, in recipes, there are some other ingredients after this to add more texture and enrichen the taste. But this time I want to try adding fish into the soup. Then serve the fish together with the soup. First thing we need to do is to make sure the fish isn't poisonous though. Especially when cooked. So hopefully we get at least two fishes so I can cook one beforehand and one later with the soup."

Placing the lid onto the pot, the two of us shifted to in front of the fish net to check if we caught anything.

[To be fair, since Ava and I don't need to eat, one fish is technically enough for the both of you. Unless that fish is really small.]

We poked our heads out of the sides and saw a small bulge wiggling in the net.

[We caught something!]

Sazzy grabbed the fish with her hands and pulled it out of the net.

With a sleek gray back and large fins, the fish flopped around as it struggled against Sazzy's iron tight hold.

"It looks edible enough?"

Sazzy helped me bring the fish over to a small box in the corner where I put the knives and sharp objects at. Then holding the fish to the counter, I used the knife to cut off its head first as we examined it.

[I don't detect any poison on the fish-ah wait there is poison.]

Sazzy was talking, but the moment I cut into the fish, she interrupted herself.

[The fish blood is poisonous. Don't touch it. Actually, it might be better if I held the fish since I can't get poisoned. Also good thing this is not an enclosed space.]

Sazzy took the fish away from me and dumped it into the pot. She also took a cloth and wiped the poisonous blood off the box. Then she dipped the cloth into the water to wash it.

[Thankfully the box is waterproof.]

While she was doing all that, I dug around for a pair of gloves as well as something to hang the fish on. Since the blood was poisonous, maybe once we drained the blood we could eat it?