"Kakariko Village is definitely closer. No signs, I believe, but if you simply go right at the fork in the canyon, you will arrive there. It's not far."

"Thank you, I think I'll head there."

"Fare well, then. I think I'll head south for now."

She waves cheerily back at him as she runs away, letting the adrenaline keep her going further than she would otherwise. (She still doesn't get very far away before having to stop to walk.)

The birdman takes off with a few powerful flaps of his wings. The instrument goes around his back.

That campfire has some random guy sitting next to it now. He shrugs when Naomi just runs past.

The canyon is up ahead as described. Naydra is still turning lazy circles in the sky, and doesn't seem to be paying attention to her.

If the dragon is still there she's going to keep running. Walking. Walking while sometimes also running? Something like that.

The canyon's walls are intimidatingly steep, but hides her quite well from Naydra's presence. She can see a fork a few hundred meters ahead just as promised.

Seems to be getting a little close to sunset - the shadows are long and the bottom of the canyon is out of direct sunlight.

She'll keep going. The village is more likely to have safe food than the wilderness. She will hopefully be able to do something for money to pay for it.

The right fork takes her to a dense patch of woods nestled between more mountains after about twenty minutes of walking. There are mushrooms here and there, acorns on the ground, a few pretty looking flowers.

She can take the upper path or the lower path through the woods. Presumably the bard would have mentioned if they led to different places...?

Naomi does not know how to identify non-poisonous mushrooms and she does not think anyone will be interested in the acorns. She picks the flowers and meanders through the woods picking more. 

She finds a couple of carrots, too.

...Well, this thing looks important. A few things that are either small glowing birds or exceptionally large pink fireflies hover lazily nearby.

It even shows up on her deck. Almost like a very, very, very weird Host.

... that is deeply, deeply strange. 

She tries to finesse access into the host.

It takes about thirty seconds to find a configuration that convinces the weird Host to give her a mark. Everything about the process is a little off, including what the mark looks like. But it lets her in.

The inside is one large room like a cave made of wood, like the inside of a tree. There is a large pool of water in the middle. Little nacelles with fairy-tale style mushrooms or giant flowers are scattered around. A large workbench-like thing with tools proportioned for a Troll - or someone bigger - sits in front of the pool.

Naomi makes sure she's running silent before she steps in. Not that she's planning to get marks on and copy any files, she just wants to take a look around.

The host definitely doesn't match any of the aesthetics she's used to. She has absolutely no clue whether the water or the mushrooms or the nacelles or the tools are ornamental or representations of files. It would be outrageous to not have any security measures except for the entrance to the host, so she guesses that the objects are all reskinned not to look like files.

She sets about peering at the objects to see if they've been reskinned -- easy, but time consuming if she has to do it for all of them.

The nacelles on the walls seem vaguely like... Recharging stations for drones? Sort of? Same with the flowers. The mushrooms are apparently ornamental.

The workstation and tools are not disguised. They have slots for magical power input, two inputs of something else that she doesn't recognize, and some options ports.

The water is a disguised path to another room, and probably a strong security measure too.

It's odd how much this area looks like a place where something lives. Naomi thinks about AI with weirdly human tastes and rogue sprites as she examines the tools more closely. 

It's really quite hard to tell what they might be meant to do without touching them. Thematically, something with clothing? Protection or disguise? Maybe magical manufacturing?

She spends some time 3-D imaging the tools, the flowers, the nacelles, and the water fountain, and leaves. The tools are -- not files, somehow, and if they're actually for making anything instead of just being set dressing they're probably some technomancer bullcrap that she can't use anyway. She may as well collect more flowers to sell in the village.

The end of the forest is near! Another half a mile or so. There is a large, mysterious structure - same design motif as that pedestal the bird guy was next to - that bears another Host. It overlooks a steep cliff above a medieval-looking village. There are human-looking people walking around, tending gardens and things. A path down is off to the left.

Another host! Fancy, and potentially informative! She'll take a look inside that one too. 

This is much trickier. It's looking for a specific key device. There is a little pedestal with a physical connection for it. Eventually she manages to mimic the signal with her Deck closely enough that the Host marks her.

Neat! She -- figuratively -- steps inside. 

The Host is a large, empty room with a few pillars in place, and a few treasure chest-looking things. Another room rests at the end of the hall.

Chests! That way more like a place where someone would store files. She makes a beeline for the closest one.

Too bad something comes out of that other room.

An elf? But it looks - shriveled, mummified, it wears golden ornamentation and has a strange eye symbol tattooed on its forehead. It floats toward her in a steady pose.

"You are no sage. This place is not meant for you. Leave the realm of this shrine immediately."