Food. Water. Wasn't sick. Jane could feel the love. The sentiment might have sounded facetious, but it wasn't: those were the bare essentials of giving a damn, and mostly what Jane had known for a great portion of her life. The Eunuch might have been a lot of things, but at least he did that for his slaves, of whom Jane had once been a part. Other Slavemasters didn't even bother with that--especially if they only needed labor for a temporary project.
Simple? Sure. But Jane was as simple and straightforward as they came.
Otherwise, you would be the one diving for it."
"Wouldn't be the first time I went overboard," she said. Swimming was actually great. There were so many Mainlanders who didn't know how to swim, honestly it boggled Jane's mind.
* * * * *
So they made it to the Portal Stone. It really was only a proverbial "hop, skip, and a jump" away from Elyr-Ideth. Only, when they went to use it, both Jane and Nate saw the same...interesting thing: A new rune. A completely new destination rune. Tonight, of all nights, when the moons were having an orgy in the sky and--as those onlookers in Elyr-Ideth had commented--the heavens had all aligned.
Now that piqued curiosity.
Nate had his reasons, naturally. And Jane too: by Astra and especially by Aionus, shouldn't she ought to investigate this? Wouldn't that be taking some Nykios-inspired initiative and doing some good around Arethil all of her own accord? Something the Redeemer himself would do. And if he wasn't a paragon of Celestialism, no one was.
So she cast a sly glance to Nate and gave him a nod and affirmed his stated intention of Let's do this.
* * * * *
Traveling via Portal Stone was...awful. Jane could count on a single hand the times she'd done it, and it never got any better--maybe even got worse.
Like now.
Jane sure as hell didn't consider herself well-traveled; certainly not anywhere outside of the Black Bay. Yet even she could tell that this city, this strange place, was unlike any she'd seen before. Sure, there were humans about and they were in what was ostensibly a town square, but...somehow...this place seemed more Mainland than the actual Mainland. Must be the architecture or something--and it was daylight here. And was that building above floating?
Heh, maybe other Mainlanders who came here would feel how Jane felt. Cerak was to Liadain/Epressa what Liadain/Epressa was to this place. Take that, Mainlanders. No offense to Nate. Alright, slight offense to Nate. Like a playful jab to the ribs.
And Jane's initial thoughts on the foreign city were interrupted when a man approached the two of them.
Jane looked him up and down. Took his measure. And (truly overwhelmed by the newness of everything around her) simply replied with a grin and two words:
"Nice mask."
Nathanael McCallister Tytus Amladeris