After breakfast, Mina and Tanner set out to buy a robe or cloak for the golem, so that it could walk around other people without rousing too much suspicion. Grandma also insisted that they buy a small sack of salt, though that drained almost all their earnings from the green boring beetles.
Once they had clothes for the golem, Grandma went back to it and accompanied the children to the town hall to buy a map. The clerk looked askance at the three of them, but handed it to them without argument. She explained where they were and pointed out the name of the town on the map, gestured to the Duke’s estate, then told them quickly about other towns in the surrounding area. The map didn’t show a great deal of detail about terrain, but it did show the roads and towns, and it stretched all the way to the ocean to the east.
[We should get out of Westhill,] Grandma said as they rolled up the map and headed back to the inn. [Maybe head east, toward the ocean.]
[What’s an ocean?] Mina asked. [The woman at the desk said there wasn’t anything past the ocean.]
[Well, an ocean is a big body of salty water. But I’m pretty sure there are things beyond the ocean.]
They got underway, the children riding on Chestnut at a leisurely walk while Grandma trudged along in the golem beside them. When they were out of sight of the town, Ember and Spark emerged from the woods and kept pace with them
[Where have you been?] Mina asked Ember.
[Hiding in the woods. People don’t like us.]
With the foxes’ help, they were able to eat a variety of small game meat as they traveled. Now and then, Mina sensed knots of people heading toward them along the road, and they ducked off the path to hide in the woods. Sometimes the people were merchants, and other times, the Duke’s soldiers.
At night, they camped where the foxes led them, finding secretive little clearings away from the road and passersby. Grandma taught Mina how to skin, gut, and butcher the animals that the foxes brought them, mostly rabbits, occasionally songbirds or voles. Tanner complained about eating mice, but meat was meat, and with a little salt, even that was tasty enough.
“How do you know how to do all that stuff?” Tanner asked one night.
“What stuff?” Mina asked in between mouthfuls of roasted rabbit.
“You know, cutting up an animal so that we can eat it. Cooking.” Tanner nibbled on his portion thoughtfully. “Fighting and magic too.”
“M-my Grandma taught me.” Mina busied herself with eating.
“Yeah, that’s what you said before too.” The boy sighed. “Well, teach me too, will ya? I don’t like feeling useless.”
“Oh! Y-yes, of course!” Mina blinked in surprise. [Grandma, will you teach him too?]
[Why not? Many hands make light work.] Grandma smiled warmly. [Tanner’s a good kid.]
They passed through a few towns, but didn’t stay the night at any of them. For one thing, they had no money, and for another, the Duke’s soldiers had been asking around and they didn’t want to linger long. Grandma thought it was lucky that they hadn’t been caught yet, and hoped that their good fortune would continue.
After many days of travel, they arrived at a lake. The road continued on, and they could see a town a little ways farther, but the sun was already setting, and there was an inviting looking clearing nearby.
“Where are we?” Tanner asked, tugging out the map.
“Here, I think,” Mina pointed where Grandma indicated, at the western edge of a wobbly, peanut shaped area on the map. “This should be Southlake province now.”
Tanner squinted at Mina in suspicion. “Can you read this map? How do you know?”
“My Grandma taught me,” Mina repeated stubbornly. [I thought you said you couldn’t read either? How do you know, Grandma?]
[You remembered that?] Grandma moved the golem to pat Mina gently on the head. [My granddaughter read to me, and I remembered a little about the geography, that’s all.]
“Why are you patting yourself on the head?” Tanner stared at Mina and the golem.
“Why not? It feels nice. Do you want a head pat too?” Mina smirked.
The golem reached out toward Tanner, but the boy scrambled away. “No thanks!”
As Grandma stared at the map, a strange thought occurred to her. She could understand the spoken language, but the written symbols were different. And yet, the writing on the map felt oddly right. As the kids bickered over their chores setting up camp, Grandma took a stick and copied out onto a bare patch of dirt the symbols on the map for Westhill, Southlake, and a handful of other place names she recognized by location. Then underneath each one, she wrote out the names again in her native language from her first life.
[This can’t be a coincidence,] Grandma blurted as she stared at the writing in the dirt.
[What is it?] Mina left her chores to look over Grandma’s shoulder.
[The number of symbols in the top row is the same as in the bottom row, see?] Could it be that this world’s writing system was as simple as a substitution cipher? Is it possible for things to be this convenient? [Let’s buy some writing tools and things to write on, when we get more money. I need to test out a theory.]
Grandma’s theory had to wait. Several days later, Mina finally declared that she had found another potential dungeon. They left the road behind and trudged north through tall, waving grass, until they arrived at a stack of stones standing incongruously in the middle of the field.
“Is that the dungeon?” Tanner asked, eyeing the stack of rocks dubiously. “It doesn’t look like much.”
Unlike the mausoleum or the giant tree, this stack of stones was barely Mina’s height, an irregular pyramid of rocks piled carefully one atop the other. Even if the entire structure turned into the doorway, there was still no way that the horse would fit in there.
“I guess we’ll camp out here for the night. We’ll have to leave Chestnut behind.”
The entrance to the dungeon was as cramped and tiny as Tanner had feared, only waist high at its tallest point. The children had to crawl through on hands and knees, and Grandma was forced to wriggle the golem in on its belly. At least it opened up into a broad, flat space after not too long a distance.
The inside of the dungeon looked nothing like the landscape they had left behind. Instead of lush waving grass, they found themselves standing on a small knoll overlooking an expansive marsh. Water carved the landscape into segregated lumps of earth. Huge dragonflies flitted here and there, their wings stirring up a breeze that rippled the surface of the water.
A sudden swelling of frog song deafened them. Great spotted creatures leaped toward them from the marshy water, their eyes aglow with rage at the intrusion. They weren’t terribly large, the biggest of them only coming up to the children’s knees, but there were an awful lot of the creatures.
[I think this is not a good dungeon for us to try and fight at this time,] Grandma said with clinical detachment. [Maybe you two should head back while I block the exit.]
Mina translated this and shouted, “Run!”
As the children darted back to the exit tunnel, Grandma reshaped her body so that her arms became thick clubs. She stood over the entrance and swung her club arms menacingly at the frogs, daring them to get closer. The frogs hesitated, unsure how to deal with an enemy that was larger than their mouths and flailing vigorously.
[Come on, Grandma!] Mina shouted as she emerged from the dungeon.
Grandma folded the golem into the tunnel and squirmed out. There was nothing elegant or graceful about her movements, but that was fine. All she cared about was getting out without losing her golem.
One brave frog decided to enter the tunnel after her, shooting its tongue out at her in an ill conceived attempt to eat her. The golem was much too large and heavy, and the frog received a solid bonk on the noggin for its trouble. Grandma felt sorry for it, since she quite liked frogs, but not enough to allow herself to be eaten without a fight.
“Can you close it?” Tanner asked anxiously as Grandma emerged from the hole in the stone.
“I’ve never tried!” Mina stood anxiously wringing her hands. [How do I close it?]
[Let’s try together.] Grandma flowed back into Mina’s body as soon as the golem was clear of the dungeon. Gathering the mana flowing in and around her, Grandma envisioned pinching the dungeon opening shut again, kneading it like dough until the hole was sealed. [There. Did that work?]
“You… You did it!” Tanner reached out and tapped the rock. It made a solid thud.
[Well, I guess not every dungeon will be so friendly.] Grandma returned to the golem and climbed to her feet. [We should find someone to teach us more magic, and maybe some close quarter fighting techniques.]
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