Chapter 75 - Journey to Dublin I (Patreon)

“Can anyone explain to me again why we didn’t just get an airplane to Dublin?” Sora asked as they all piled into a rented car. Tiny and Gabriella coming along had one benefit - no need to get two cabs to take everyone to the gate. The two of them could drive the car back. 

“Do you have a passport?” Praetorian Walker asked Sora.

“Passport? What’s a passport?” Sora asked.

“And that’s why we’re not taking an airplane.” Jones said.

“If Sutter had a passport and the funds, it might’ve been easier to just fly him over to Dublin without any of us entering the noonie world.” Walker explained. “Except the process takes months, barring any… complications.”

Felix shrank back at the idea.

“So, you lot have international travel without airplanes?” Tiny asked incredulously.

“Surfing the leylines is the most common way to travel long distances.” Jones said. “But everywhere is only 7 hours from Avalon.”

“Wait, you can’t just hustle to get there faster?” He asked.

“There’s something of an art to moving as slowly as possible.” Walker said. “It’s a long trip, why sprint?”

Sora looked heartbroken at the idea.

“Noooo! Felix, help me out! We’re going slow?” She gripped onto Felix’s neck and shook him.

His mom shot him a knowing smirk, and Felix slowly felt himself going red. He knew that look, and it heralded nothing good for him.

“So, Felix, why didn’t you tell me anything about your girlfriend?” His mom teased.

“Mom! It’s not like that!” Felix protested.

“Well. She’s a girl. She’s your friend. She came all the way to visit you here… what am I supposed to think?” She asked.

Sora, vile traitor that she was, simply grinned at Gabriella’s comments and piled on.

“Yeah, Felix! What am I, chopped liver? I come all this way, and you barely said hi! I’m hurt! Wounded! Offended!”

The 20 minute trip stretched into eternity. Felix wished the ground would open up and swallow them whole. Or maybe they could get into a car crash. One of the 18-wheelers should be able to do them in. 

At last, they ended at a trailhead. Felix resisted sighing.

Of course he’d need to haul his luggage over hill and dale. He should invest in a hiking backpack, it’d be more useful with all the wilderness terrain he needed to cross. Would it be that hard to pave over the Port of Dreams? It wasn’t like it was light - he’d needed to cleverly pack in all the shopping he’d done for his friends, along with the extras he was hoping to sell at school.

His mom hugged him and fussed over him. Tiny sent him off with a firm handshake. Felix knew enough by now not to ask why Sora looked upset.

The four of them hiked down the trail together. Jones looked around carefully before starting to speak.

“Alright, listen. Not too much news gets out of the Empire of the Sun, but it’s generally not great.”

To be fair, not a lot of news got out of any of the countries, if Felix understood things right. Spellbooks hopping countries was how most communications occurred, traveling was just flat out that dangerous, and usually there wasn’t a great reason to travel. If they needed something, they could just go to the noonie world to get it. 

Well… that was oversimplifying a bit. Currency conversion, the entirely different world and culture, knowledge barriers, and portals not being super common all added friction. Friction meant a markup for people like Felix who were doing the hard work of bringing over goodies.

There were friendships, letters, and defensive obligations, but not tons of news. Which was a bit of an oxymoron, as far as Felix was concerned - wouldn’t people talk to each other about what was going on? - but communication, as a whole, still felt medieval. If that recent - the medieval era was marked by the printing press. Dark ages, perhaps? With a bonus of ‘everyone’s literate’ and ‘everyone can use the noonie world’. 

Maybe that’s why people didn’t care too much - the noonie world provided more than enough information.

Jones kept talking.

“Walker and I are going to step through the portal first, then step right back. Gods be good, it’s just wilderness on the otherside, and we’ll be able to get a quick step on. Worst case, there’s a city here. If there is, we’ll have to find another portal.”

Felix nodded his understanding with Sora.

They found the portal a few minutes later. A stone pillar, leaning over onto another one, with Nisenan tribal images marked on them. Walker rapped the pillar with a knuckle.

“Yup, this is it.” He dropped his bag, and Jones did the same. The two of them drew their wands, put on their glasses, double-checked their chain necklaces, and generally did a full-body check on each other.

“What are they doing?” Sora stage whispered to Felix.

“Getting ready for a fight.” It seemed obvious to him - they were checking their equipment, and the only reason they’d be spending so much time was they were expecting problems.

The two of them stood back to back, counted down, then side stepped through the portal together. They simply vanished, but a moment later stepped back.

“Looked clear.” Jones said.

“Just trees.” Walker agreed. 

“Longer this time?” Jones said.

“Aye, 10 seconds.” Walker said.

Felix thought the two of them might be a hair paranoid, but what did he know? It took another 10 minutes for the two Praetorians to determine that the area around the portal was ‘safe enough to start a trip to Avalon’, and to bring the two kids over.

The four of them linked hands. Walker and Jones on either side, holding their wands, with Felix and Sora in the middle. Their suitcases were unceremoniously kicked through, vanishing through the portal without a trace.

“When we step through, Jones is going to start walking. Focus hard on your desire to go to Avalon, and walk with us. Don’t let go until we do, otherwise we risk some of us heading over and others getting left behind. That’d be bad.” Walker said. “On three. One, two, three.”

The four of them went through in a line. Felix was expecting something as he walked through the portal, and wasn’t disappointed. There was a full-body tingle, a charge going through the air. The closest feeling was like hair-raising static electricity all over, but both more and different.

“Avalon! Focus! Go go go!” Jones said, yanking Felix along. He kept a strong grip on Sora, all while thinking of Avalon, and how he’d like to get there. The four of them moved at a good clip, the Praetorians kicking Felix’s luggage along like an oversized soccerball, before Jones came to an abrupt stop. He let go of Felix’s hand, and started to slowly stroll through the woods, practically creeping along. His wand was up, his head was moving around, but he wasn’t trying to move fast.

“We’re in.” Walker said, mirroring his partner. “Wands out, and get ready for a hike.”

Jones spent a minute casting several dozen protective charms over them. Bug-repelling charms, protective shields, and anti-poison wards. Which were different from the anti-venom wards. A pair of silver soul charms were cast. A corgi barked silently, and bounced around the party with his tail wagging furiously. A gem-encrusted tortoise lumbered around them far faster than its true counterpart could’ve moved.  The Praetorian finished by pulling a list out of his pocket, checking over it, then stuffing it back away.

“Right, ready to go.” Jones said. The corgi immediately bounded off through the grass, occasionally sniffing the ground.

“Wooo!” Sora was practically bouncing with excitement.

Felix finally had a moment to take in where he was. It looked similar to home, but the first thing he noticed was the cold. It was significantly colder here than it was back home.

They were in a small wood, and the trees didn’t look nearly as dry. What sky he could see was just as perfectly blue as normal, not a single cloud to be seen. 

Felix was no botanist, but the plants looked slightly off. They tickled his brain, like something he was almost familiar with. Could they be related to his core, in some way? The creatures here were the most likely - nope.

Nope, nope, nope, Felix wasn’t thinking about this now. 

“What now?” Sora asked with her wand out, looking up and around.

“Now? We spend 7 to 9 hours hiking to Avalon, depending on how many breaks we take, and how long they are.” Jones said.

“Either of you study up what we might encounter out here?” Walker asked. 

“Wait, we were supposed to study?” Sora asked.

Felix rolled his eyes and swatted at her.

“I took a quick look, but I couldn’t find a reliable source. Sorry.” Felix said.

“Excellent work, Sutter.” Jones quickly flashed a grin at him, then went back to looking all around. “That’s exactly correct. There aren’t any good books that we have access to detailing what we could find here.”

“Stay on your toes, head on a swivel. We’re on the path to Avalon, but that means anything could accost us.” Walker said.

The four of them soon cleared the forest - more of a thicket, really - and they were out in the rolling California valley. Both familiar and not, as most things were in Arcadia. Instead of crispy, sun-cooked yellow, dried scrub ready to ignite in one of California’s infamous wildfires, everything was far more green. Granted, it was more of a yellow-green of drier grass, but it didn’t look like a spark would burn down half the state.

Not that there was a state in Arcadia… although they were more in the lands between, heading to Avalon.

Magic was weird, but pretty cool.

The drier grass didn’t look local, and it took Felix another few minutes of thinking before he finally got it.

They were in Arcadia. Merlin had split the world in half. Everything in Arcadia was magical, from the plants, flowers, and trees, all the way to the animals and people. The plants looked different because they were different. 

It wasn’t just plants. The place wasn’t a lifeless wasteland. The plants supported a variety of bugs, buzzing around or chirping unnaturally loudly. Songbirds sang, while swallow-like birds flitted among the long grasses. Small mammals chittered, and Felix saw some birds circling high up. From his History and Theory lessons, Felix was half-expecting everything to be shambling undead. Maybe he’d find out why that wasn’t the case - or maybe his expectations were warped.

“Also, Sutter, you’re a local.” Jones said. “Keep an eye out on the terrain and the creatures you’re seeing. The Duke’s interested to know how far we’ll go. Will we stay in California? Cross the Sierras? The Rockies? The Great Plains? Let us know. When it’s safe.”

Felix nodded, but didn’t say anything. At the same time, he was thinking.

Magic made things nonsense, yes. But at the pace they were going, they’d only manage to go a few miles at best. Wouldn’t they see a mountain if they were going over one? Wouldn’t they see their destination by now?

At the same time, he was trying to apply logic to the problem.

Felix tightened the grip on his wand, and reviewed the motions and incantation for the grease spell. If there was a problem, he’d be ready. He blinked, and the landscape shifted around him. They went from a field to a redwood forest.

“This is still California, but we’ve gone a distance.” Felix said. Unsurprisingly, mist started to rise all around them. Redwoods could only grow in heavily misted areas.

“Dark ones.” Walker said. Jones responded by pointing his wand up and casting a bright flame spell that hovered over the four of them.

“Where?” Felix whispered to Sora. The girl was glancing around nervously, her wand darting around.

“Don’t see them.” She whispered back.

“They’re inside the shadows.” Jones tensely replied. “Light and flame drive them away, we should get through without issue.”

Now that Felix was looking, he could see a darker patch inside the shadows. He wanted to whistle.

He never would’ve spotted that without the Praetorians pointing it out. Given how many creatures they’d ignored, dark ones had to be dangerous. Or just worth being careful about.

Felix missed school. He missed being able to pull out a notebook and pen and start writing things down. He couldn’t wait to get back.

Given how effective the flames were against the dark ones, maybe there was something to the whole ‘fire is the solution to everything’ thing wixen had going on.

Hmm. His non-magical history classes had just started to touch on ‘manifest destiny’, maybe there was something about taming the wilderness. Food for thought, when he wasn’t thinking about not becoming food.

The hours passed mostly uneventfully. Once in a while, a blink would have the terrain shift on them, and Felix could never tell if it was when he blinked, when everyone blinked together, or what was going on. There was nonsense involved with it, and its name was magic. 

Rocky mountains, blowing winds, and winding rivers were all part of their adventure to Avalon. Felix’s estimation of how easy it was to travel on The Prydwen steadily went up, and his desire to do it again steadily crashed.

He blinked, and they were on the Great Plains. A loud snort made him turn and freeze.

A trio of half-rotted bison were looking at them, and the unholy light in their eyes promised agony.

They charged.