Chapter 126: 43: Moving in Darkness

Danika escaped the embarrassing moment, but exchanged it for a rather disorienting one. As she zipped across the wavering border of the clearing everything seemed to stretch and the clearing became a meadow that stretched out farther into a vast field underneath the starry sky above. She came to a halt and then spun and looked backward.

Aishin narrowly avoided running into her as he slid to a halt. Some distance behind him, there was a dark line of vast trees that seemed to stretch almost as tall as the tree over the beginner's vale.

"Don't just throw yourself into danger to avoid hearing my reply," Aishin complained.

"What were you going to reply," Danika asked nervously.

"Then take your time? There's no rush? Something like that, I don't know," he said while scanning the dark open field warily.

An enormous Shrubbery stepped out of the trees and approached at a ridiculously fast speed at first, although her motions said that she was walking at her usual slow pace. Her figure seemed to reduce in size as she drew closer and her progress slowed.

"Sorry," Danika apologized.

"It's ok, just stay close," Aishin replied.

"I didn't expect you both to just follow me right in. Do you think we can go back out?" Danika asked just as Shrubbery reached them.

"No idea," Aishin muttered, "I've never run into any place like this before."

Shrubbery said, "Entering my tree is a bit like this?"

Danika zipped past Aishin toward the distant treeline. Everything seemed to condense and a moment later she popped out of the grove.

She turned and re-entered it more slowly, and she could see the distant figures of Aishin and Shrubbery as the stretching of the landscape happened again, only it was less shocking at a slower pace. Aishin had his arms crossed and an exasperated look on his face.

"Um, we can go in and out, the border is just weirdly stretchy," Danika announced a little hesitantly.

"That's good," Shrubbery said laughingly.

Aishin held out his hands for her to land on in a somewhat demanding gesture. Danika guiltily flew into his reach and landed on his palms. "Is staying close that difficult right now?" he questioned neutrally.

"I really didn't fly far," she protested. "It only felt like a few meters. You didn't run far when you were following me either did you?"

"No, it seemed like just a few paces," he agreed. After a moment he sighed and then smiled at her. "Ok, so what's your plan now?"

Danika turned and pointed and told him, "The Whereabouts compass says that Mark Bounds is that way. Can your life form detection see him?"

"Can't you use that one?" Aishin questioned.

"I think so, but I only have a few berries if I run out of energy again," Danika admitted.

He set her on his shoulder and brought up the faint shimmer of his menu screens. A moment later he said, "This place is crawling with animals." He turned and pointed, there's something right there, not more than half a meter from Shrubbery.

Shrubbery jumped and moved closer to Aishin before turning to stare into the dark grass. Danika cast her light cantrip and sent a spark of light in every direction. Little eyes gleamed in the light for a moment where Shrubbery had been standing.

Shrubbery said doubtfully, "I know this is going to sound like I'm running away because this is creepy, but I should go soon."

Danika laughed and replied, "I didn't expect you to even be able to stay this long, I won't think that it's because we're surrounded by animals in the dark. Do you want me to fly out beside you so that you're not logged out in whatever kind of space this is?"

"Please," Shrubbery said nervously. This time all three of them exited the clearing in a circle of light as Danika surrounded them with her cantrip's particles. Shrubbery logged out as soon as she was safely back in the normal woodland.

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Aishin turned to enter again and Danika said, "Aishin?"

He stopped and waited. After a moment he turned and asked, "What?"

Danika felt like his tone asked, 'what now?' She asked quickly, "Do you need to sleep too? This morning you sounded like you weren't sure that you'd have time to play at all?"

"Do you want me to go sleep?" he questioned.

"If you need to," she agreed without hesitation.

"Things are going to get really busy again soon, I want to play with you more while I can," he explained.

Danika flew closer and hovered in front of him at the height that he usually held her. After a moment his hands came up to hold her. "You could switch to your phone and lay down, and then go into my garden to log off when you're too sleepy?" she suggested.

"Ok," he said after a moment. "I'll let you nag me a little, but you're not allowed to go back in there without me while I'm switching."

"I'm not trying to nag you," Danika protested.

"Are you refusing?" Aishin asked.

"No?" she replied quickly.

His eyes crinkled and he logged out with a grin.

Danika ate some of the blackberries while she waited. A herd of deer approached the circle, and eyed her warily with their big dark eyes. The leader bounded past her all of a sudden, and like a shot had been fired the others bounced after it. Danika tried to see if she could see them becoming smaller and moving into the clearing, but the air seemed to shimmer too much, and it was just as though they'd vanished.

Aishin finally logged back in, and said in the flat tones he used when he was communicating by text, "Ok, I'm ready."

"Ok," Danika replied, and darted back into the circle.

A breeze had picked up, and the grasses waved in ripples across the wide field. The moon had risen over the edge of the horizon, making the landscape both more visible, and the shadows darker and harder to see into.

"Can you dim your sparkle on purpose?" Aishin asked. "You stand out like a lamp."

"I can try?" Danika said, and activated her stealth and tried to dim her light the way she activated her dazzling.

She couldn't see any difference, but Aishin said, "Better."

They moved quietly through the dark grassland. Danika could barely see Aishin in his dark clothes and he moved silently through the grass although they occasionally heard the rustle of creatures moving around them. Sometimes there was a sudden pattering or scrabbling noise as some small animal scurried away from them.

They crossed small streams that trickled and burbled as they bounced along their little courses. Or maybe it was the same stream and it wound back and forth across the vast field. Danika wondered as she followed the Whereabouts compass if maybe they were still getting smaller or the field bigger. There was no longer any trace of the big trees that had bordered the grassland when she looked backward, and the compass still indicated a steady forward direction.

Aishin murmured, "I wish something would attack us, this is weird. I've never traveled this far across open territory without something coming out to defend its territory."

Danika thought back to her other travels so far and asked quietly, "Were you moving stealthily like this? When we were just running through places things attacked us, but whenever I was following the traveling merchant nothing ever attacked, and when we were moving slowly around Windbur hunting for signs of goblin loggers, only a few things attacked us? Actually, nothing ever attacked us when we followed the path from Tamworth to the coast either."

"Um, usually when I'm moving stealthily like this it's in inhabited places. How far would you guess we've come?" he questioned. "It's harder for me to judge on the mobile version."

Danika shrugged. "I don't know, there aren't any real landmarks and we aren't moving very fast," she replied softly. "I think it's possible that we're being led in circles? There's no reason that this Mark Bounds should be holding still is there?"

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