"We've passed that rock six times by now."
"Yeah, weird."
"...I think we're going in circles."
Anne groaned, then slid off her mount. The horse thing neighed as her feet hit the ground, and Kipo watched in rapt fascination. She never seen anything like it before: a long, skinny, silver horse shaped creature with the main body, limbs and neck where about the same thickness as her wrist. The widest part of the creatures where the middle of their backs, which widened out into something that almost resembled a 'seat'. When they ran, they're skinny legs went so fast that they almost looked like a solid circle, and once Anne had mentioned that they looked like 'sonic the hedgehog' running. Kipo was going to have to take her word for it.
A ruffle of paper caught Kipo's attention, and when she turned her head, she saw Anne had once again taken out the map, holding it wide open. This was pretty usual, and Kipo still hadn't figured out if the map itself was not up to par or the people holding the map.
Anne seemed to squint at it. "I don't know... it looks like we're going in the right direction?"
Fei Fei slid off her skinny horse as well, and her armour clanked as she moved. "It just looks like it?"
Anne huffed. "Well, it be a little easier if every single one of these trees didn't look exactly the same."
Fei Fei glanced at her. "...But that's just how maps work."
"I know that's how maps work, and it sucks!" Anne looked like she wanted to throw the map. "Man, I'd kill for a gps right about now."
This, Fei Fei seemed to agree with, while Kipo tuned the both of them out. They had these talks every once in a while, but in this new forest (one that was NOT filled with pink fog like the first one) it seemed to happen more frequently. Anne and Fei Fei were looking at the map, they talked about it for a minute, and then they were back on the road.
Kipo fixed her attention on the strange creature in front of her instead, holding out her hand. To her delight, the creature lowered its black head and nuzzled it muzzle into Kipo's open palm. She beamed. It WAS cute, in a strange sort of way.
The head of the creature was black, unlike the rest of it, and it had big black eyes that reflected the sunlight. The shape of its head was like the nozzle of a hose, Kipo noticed, amused.
Suddenly, she was brought out of her thoughts as Anne and Fei Fei came back, with Anne stuffing the paper back into her bag. She was getting frustrated, Kipo noticed.
"It would be nice if we had some sort of landmark or something," Anne grumbled.
"A compass would be nice, too," Fei Fei sighed. That was true, Kipo knew. Why didn't they have a compass?
"Yeah, that too," Anne agreed. She glared at their surroundings. "Would be great if there weren't so many TREES AND STUFF AROUND!"
Suddenly, Kipo straightened up. Anne had just given her an idea.
"Hold on," Kipo said, hopping off her horse as Fei Fei and Anne struggled to climb back on theirs. They looked over to her, surprised, and perhaps even more so when Kipo started climbing up one of the trees. The trees here were a lot smaller than the ones in the other forest. "I'll be right back..."
Fei Fei caught on before Anne did. "Oh! You're going to try and scout from the treetops?"
"Huh? Oh!" Anne face palmed, shaking her head. "Duh! That makes sense! Surprised we didn't think about it before..."
Kipo shrugged, also wondering that, but before she climb up farther, Anne slid off her horse and ran over to the base of Kipo's tree, pulling her map back out. "Wait, Kipo!" Pausing at the base of the tree, Anne held open the map. "Look for one of these landmarks, okay? So, we know where we are!"
Kipo squinted down, studying the map in Anne's hands. There was a river that seemed to curl around one side of the forest, a mountain that they couldn't seem to spot through the foliage, and the crest of the two swords clashing together to represent the town. Their destination.
Satisfied, Kipo nodded, once again starting up the tree. "Got it!" she said, sending a wink to Anne and Fei Fei. Before she disappeared into the treetops, she saw the two of them grin back.
When she got to the top, she took her surroundings in very carefully. She just had to look for either the mountain or the river. Mountain or river...
Suddenly, Kipo's eyes suddenly widened as they caught sight of something very, very different: a flag flying from a tall building that seemed to look over the edge of the forest. Kipo gasped That flag... it looked just like...
"Hey, did you find a landmark yet?!" Anne called up to her.
'Oh, I think I found something much better than a landmark...'
For a second, none of the three said anything, only staring up at the town in front of them in stunned silence. Eventually, Anne raised her arms, gesturing angrily at the buildings in front of them.
"It was HERE?" she cried. "The whole time, it was RIGHT NOW."
"We were walking around in circles and we never even caught a glimpse of it," Fei Fei said. She sounded amazed. "We never saw it at all?"
"This is sitcom levels of ridiculous," Anne huffed and Kipo laughed, even though she didn't really understand it.
"Well, at least we finally found it, right?" Kipo told them. "We're finally here, in the town of Gramsby, where that person is! We're got no time to waste, we have to find them!"
Kipo's words more or less seemed to remind her traveling companions of their mission, and they nodded.
"Right," Anne agreed. "...So... do we just walk through the town and look?"
"Well, I guess that'll work, too, but I've got a better idea." Kipo reached into her pocket, bringing out the blue crystal. "We'll use this! I thought it'd be useful to locate everyone."
"You're probably right," Fei Fei said, and the three of them left the middle of the street, finding themselves in a corner out of the way of the rest of the town. Kipo looked around carefully, making sure no one could see them (this crystal could be valuable, after all) and Kipo carefully wrapped her bare fingers around it.
Instantly, just like all the other times before, she was transported from the place she was to a completely different place, almost like she teleported. And, just like the last few times, Kipo looked up, studying her surroundings carefully.
However, unlike last time, the scene didn't just fade away after a couple seconds, and eventually, Kipo drew her eyes from the room and to the person staring right at her.
"Oh!" Kipo blurted out. "Hi."
The person started. So, they could hear her...?
Well, that was a bit of good news. But Kipo didn't know how long she had, so she'd need to talk quickly.
"Uh... I'm Kipo," Kipo said quickly. "Me and... these other two girls, we've come to find you. Not in a bad way, though! We... think we're like you, like, how none of us belong in this world, we all were put here somehow... anyway, there's sixteen of us, fifteen now, I guess, and we're all planning to work together, ok? So, we're looking for you. Ok?"
Kipo paused, but the person didn't reply. They didn't even move, and Kipo shifted, nervous. They had to be running out of time...
"Um... what's your name?" Kipo asked, cautiously. 'Please tell me something, please tell me something-!'
Kipo suddenly gasped out loud as the person raised their hands, moving them in a particular motion. 'Sign language,' Kipo realized, and she sent a grateful 'thank you!' to her dad for learning it with her. Then, she focused back on the person's hands.
"K-R-I-S," Kipo read, her eyes widening. "Kris!"
She grinned, but before she could look back up at Kris' face, they had disappeared. Instead, she was staring into the bewildered faces of Fei Fei and Anne.
For a good minute, none of them moved, before Fei Fei finally leaned closer to Anne and whispered in a voice they all could hear: "Do you think she can see us again?"
That finally seemed to break Kipo out of her utter surprise and confusion. She shook out her head. "I-I'm back, yeah."
"Oh, good," Anne breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you always able to talk to those people?"
Kipo shook her head. "No, that was new... it's never happened before." Kipo looked down at the crystal in the palm of her hand, and then slipped it into her pocket. "Maybe that means we're close."
"Great!" Anne cheered. She looked around them, at the town. "Uh... did you manage to ask 'Kris' where they are?"
Kipo sighed. "We didn't get to that. But the room they were in was small, and bare except for the desk they were in. It had a large window... and stained glass! I saw stained glass of some sort of man outside the window!"
"So, all we need to do is find stained glass?" Fei Fei guessed, but Kipo shook her head.
"Actually, it's already found."
"This is actually a lot easier then I thought it be," Anne said cheerfully as the three of them stepped up to the building Kipo saw from the tree. Some kind of church, probably. However, almost immediately, Anne took it back. "Oh, shoot, wait! Universe, forget I said that!"
Kipo and Fei Fei didn't reply, instead looking around the base of the church for the window Kipo had described. It was a big building, but not too big, so Kipo was confident it wouldn't take too long.
So while Anne walked around... apologizing to the universe or something, Kipo and Fei Fei searched around the base of the church, combing through (and admiring) the different artworks. But by the time they had gone around twice, they knew something was wrong. There wasn't any of the stained glass artwork that Kipo had seen in her vision, and eventually, Kipo and Fei Fei stepped back, puzzled.
"I don't get it..." Kipo said. "Maybe there's other stained glass?"
"I didn't see any other when we came through," Fei Fei noted, thinking back. "I don't think so, at least."
Finally, Anne seemed to notice their predicament. "You didn't find the thing?" she asked, and Kipo and Fei Fei shook their heads.
"Oh," Anne sounded surprised. "I thought that was it, up there."
Fei Fei and Kipo's eyes widened, and they whirled around to look at where Anne was pointing. And there it was! On the second floor of the church, with the man in it gazing over at something behind them.
"You found it!" Kipo cheered. "Good job, Anne!"
Anne looked pleased. "All my experience as a tourist is paying off, I guess."
Kipo nodded, before looking closely at the art. "So, if that's there... then...."
She carefully followed the man's gaze, turning around until she was looking at a big (but not quite as big) brown building on the other side of the road.
"Kris must be in there," Kipo said, pointing. Anne and Fei Fei turned around to see was she was looking at. "They're probably on the second floor, based on that painting."
"Well, then, let's not waste any time!" Anne yelled. "Let's get into that... weird... building... Yeah!"
"Really, what is that building?" Fei Fei muttered, but they didn't really condier it too much as the three of them ran over.
But it probably was a pretty good question.
"Okay, this is DEFINITELY ridiculous," Anne huffed. "How does this thing have zero doors?! Anywhere?!"
"It's strange..." Fei Fei noted. "How did... Kris?... How did Kris get in?"
"Not through a door, apparently," Anne complained, kicking at the dirt. "There's no doors even on the seconds story. There's only this thing."
Anne motioned to a hole on the side of the building, one they all could probably fit through if they crawled. Kipo frowned at it. As they'd walked along the building wall, she'd started getting a bad feeling about it. The building was long and wide, so while it was smaller than the church height wise, it was probably still bigger. One time, Anne and Kipo tried to open a window, but the glass was thick and sturdy and wouldn't budge. They'd had to run away when a guard came to chase them away. Yes, an armoured guard with gold-coloured plating came to chase them away.
Not to mention, all the people behind the windows were cartoonishly violent looking, with all kinds of weapons: swords, axes, spears... and things Kipo couldn't even name.
"What if this is some sort of prison?" Kipo eventually asked, and Anne and Fei Fei gave her an odd look.
"Don't... prisons usually have doors?" Fei Fei asked, and Kipo shrugged.
"Well, everything kind of adds up," Anne said. "The weird people in there, the guards, the impossible to break windows-."
Kipo's head snapped up. "I thought we were just trying to open the window."
"...Maybe you were doing that..." Anne admitted, and they changed the topic. "But, anyway, yeah, prison is a good theory, I think? Maybe they just have an invisible door so the prisoners can't get out."
"Really?" Fei Fei sounded unsure. "But why... would they have weapons then."
"I don't know," Anne said. "I didn't design this weird place."
"If this is a prison then we have to get Kris out!" Kipo said, glaring at the building. "We might have to break in..."
All three of their eyes shifted to the hole in the wall. Perfect. But Fei Fei still had one more thig to say.
"What if they are in there for a reason?" she asked, and Anne and Kipo exchanged surprised looks. They hadn't considered that.
"Well... I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Anne decided. "Come on!"
Anne dropped to her knees, and with seemingly not much difficulty, climbed through the hole. Then Kipo, then Fei Fei. When Kipo got to the other side, she was surprised to feel hot, rainy sand on her hands. She was even more surprised when she looked up and saw bars right across from her, and beyond that, a cheering crowd looking down at two people, battling it out with a sword.
Anne seemed to realize where they were first. "Oh! Fei Fei, get that chaching ready! We're in a tournament arc!"