"I don't know if Bys has the appropriate Skill, actually. I'll ask her. But if not she can run almost as fast as me as long as she's holding my hand, so."

"That'd get old really fast even if I wasn't getting tired, for me personally. Hey, I'm gonna dismiss this, watch this with windsight, good practice. Can you feel the spell structure at all, the sort of eight lines overlapping each other in the middle there, and how it kind of bounces at the hooves?"

After waiting a beat or two, she tugs on something and the whole horse structure falls apart in a sort of wave, scattering ulgu to the corners of the room and causing their light to flicker but nothing more. "A good dismissal is gentle, see, but it's tricky."

Ame watches attentively, and there's something beautiful in the Shadows that spill from the spell, but understanding eludes her. Her mind skips off of the intricate duality of the transforming ulgu. She shakes her head.

"Anyway."

She goes to wake up Bys and to ask if she thinks she'd be able to ride double with Elizabeth or not.

"-Um. I feel like me trying to ride a horse is a bad idea, I don't really do well with animals. Good morning, by the way."

Ame gives Bys a lingering kiss.

"Morning. And it's not actually a horse? It's a shadow puppet." Pun intended. "Well, there's no reason to race out of town first thing; we can try it a few ways to see what works before we hit the road. Worst case, there's always Plan: Handholding."

"Mmh, I guess I could try it, but I'm dubious. It's surprisingly fun, running all out all the time and getting refreshed? Like, I'm already C Rank type feelings. Let's go see Elizabeth and plan the day, I guess." She's already dressed.

C-Rank Feelings. Giggle.

"Alright."

And over breakfast they can figure out how to get Elizabeth's spooky shadow horse road-ready.

Elizabeth tries riding it for a while, then remarks, "Even with the level 1 Skill for it this is going to be annoying. And it drains more ulgu with weight and movement, so I don't know if I can keep it up with Abyssia on anyway... We should probably take a day or two here for me to get it down. Maybe hit the dungeon and save up money or get a gear upgrade. No offense Bys, but I think more armor would do you well if you can still shoot in it. Ame changes the game there."

"None taken, it's a reasonable observation. She certainly does, at that."

The last time Ame went into a dungeon-

Well, really what are the odds of that happening twice.

"We can check the dungeon out. You'd get better on the spooky horse real fast if the dungeon's spacious enough that you can cast from horseback while we're inside," Ame suggests.

"I have to control it mentally. I don't want to dungeon dive on horseback until I'm a lot better at it or I'll stand still while drawing up ghyran instead of being able to dodge off muscle memory."

"What, you don't trust me to keep aggro?" Ame jokes.

"Might still be worth it, if you're out of uglu anyway and can't practice."

"If you don't plan to fail, you fail to plan."

"Also I kind of need more money."

"Alright, alright."

It turns out the Dungeon here is closed due to ongoing disputes between the local Countess and the Adventurers' Guild. Abyssia sighs dramatically.

"I can cover you two's room for a day, Elizabeth, see if you can get the shadowhorse down so we can make faster progress. Maybe Ame can ask around for an open dungeon."

"Maybe. Actually..."

Ame leaves Elizabeth to her practicing and decides to repeat her previous course of action. She goes to look around the only-kind-of-hidden brothels and figure out where to make a quiet offer of free healing. It's much less of an organized and efficient affair than last time. Mostly she strikes up a conversation with the manager or the madam and offers to sit out of the way and heal any workers who get sent her way.

While she's doing this, she keeps an eye and an ear out, listening in on any conversations she can overhear among the clientele.

Rumors include:

They say the baker's boy went missing and was found tied up in a basement three days later, wouldn't say a word about who had him.

Contessa Haribow is awesome for sticking it to those money-grubbing Adventurers Guild bastards!

Maybe Sten down at the gladiator rink is throwing fights. He never had trouble like this before.

Martha the store owner popped out another baby, what is she on twenty by now?

Agatha's such a bitch, just because she has more Skill levels all the johns prefer her.

They say a bunch of Grail Knights are touring the countryside slaying foul beasts. Wouldn't it be nice to see one?

They say the dungeon up in Letersoot is a real good place to delve right now, they lowered the tax to almost nothing to attract more people. What's in it? Mostly lots of slimes, I heard.

I had a guy last week who wanted me to hide my ears in my hair and wear this headband with beastkin ears, and like, meow and feed him. And a tail too. I mean, he paid pretty well, so of course I did it.

They say Jocas had a falling out with his daughters and wrote them out of his will for the old mill. What are they gonna do now?

Ame has curiosity about a lot of that but she manages to restrain herself to merely reporting back to her party about Letersoot.

"It's apparently about three weeks' travel on foot in the direction we were already heading, but," Ame does some math in her head. "About two-hundred and fifty miles? We could probably get there in six hours if we really push it."

"I'd never even consider it if you weren't there to heal away my incredibly sore butt after six hours of breakneck riding. Maybe literally breakneck, mind you. There's no reason to go quite that fast, is there?"

"No. Just because we could doesn't mean we have to. Probably we should plan on two full days, with lunch breaks and a stop for the night in the middle."

"Camping out if we don't have to is a bad idea."

"Probably we won't have to camp? How many towns are between here and Letersoot? There's got to be dozens."

"Yeah, there will be, I'm just saying. And there might be someone annoying who demands a toll, it's not great but it's usually a bad idea to just barge through those-"

"Calumbria's pretty good about tolls compared to where I come from actually? And I can wave my Journeyman papers at them and see if it helps. But also yeah."