"Your preferences on the matter?"

"Whatever makes you happier."

She grins and kisses him and goes on, closer to the tree trunk.

Temperance is very excited about this.

The huge tree of tendrils goes on and on and they follow it and it leads—

—underwater.

"I don't think our wards are ready for the literal ocean."

"We've come so far..."

"...it'll still be here next time we come over, though."

"And then we discover that it not only goes underwater but also goes underground and deep into the planet's mantle."

She makes a face. "I don't expect that to be the case... but maybe."

Temperance giggles. "Hopefully not. By the gods I am curious."

"Let's just move on, the faster we get back to solid ground the faster we can develop new wards. And I'm starving."

"Oh, yeah, I didn't even want to comment on that."

Back to sweet solid land.

...it'll still take them a long while. The tree is halfway through the storm. Thankfully they brought snacks.

There are no landmarks inside the storm. But Felix notes the weather differences and how long it takes to move between the different "layers".

And the layers start changing again soon enough. The first thing to go is the tornadoes.

Good riddance.

The lightning should be next to go...

...but it's not. The unnatural winds go first, and the torrential rain reduces to that of a regular storm. All hints of magic seem to be gone, but cloud cover and thunder seems to still extend as far as the eye can see. There's still no land in sight.

"Is this the other side? Should we be worried?"

"This looks like a normal storm as far as it goes, which is nothing like where we came from..."

"I meant more whether we should worry about the possibility that we were turned around or something. Wouldn't the patch of storm change or something?"

"It hasn't changed in hundreds of years, I don't think it'd change now, but... if the scrying block is past maybe we can use a spell to point us to the North." She tries. "...well, this thing just told me the North is in three different directions but on the bright side none of them are where we came from so we've probably actually crossed it."

"Yay!"

"Let's—just go on, then, I guess?"

"Of course," Felix says while hugging her.

Onwards!

...land! In the distance! It looks rather barren and the storm extends there but honestly Kaede does not care she needs a place to stop and rest.