| 5 |
Given a new town to explore under sunlight, you and your friends decide to make your way back to the portal, and enter westward into the giant gate. As you pass through, you are hit by a leadening wave of humidity.
Beyond the gate, deep blue skies are replaced with dark grey clouds, lit by a wide rainbow arcing across the horizon. Beams of golden sunlight shine through sparse gaps in the heavy overcast, and down into the thick ambient haze below.
The clean cobblestone road fades into a beaten dirt path, damp yet firm under your hooves, and the cityscape flattens into vast plains of sparkling wet grass. A dozen modest houses form a small village up ahead, with a few more buildings scattered across faraway lands.
Tsu-Ko: "Here we are; Taihon-Nonchan, the trigon's agricultural town!"
You take a quick look around, but unlike the previous location you visited, you do not find much to look at. Grassy fields flatten the land as far as the eye can see, and among the crops, you spot a few Kirinese farmers already hard at work.
Honourshine: "Ponies choose to live here?"
You turn to see Honourshine trying to fan herself by the cowl, and begin to feel your own coat quickly moistening under your cloak.
Tsu-Ko: "What's the matter, Glasses? Not a fan of the weather?"
Begrudgingly, your foalhood friend rolls up her hooded outfit and puts it away in her sidereal bag. You can't help but follow suit, staying cool suddenly a far greater priority than concealing your wings. You remark that nowhere in Equestria does it ever get this humid.
You unequip Blue Cloak of Feather Fall.
Tsu-Ko: "Is that so? Well, you get used to it. Most importantly, the plants love it."
Moonflower: "Ooh, what'cha growin' here?"
Tsu-Ko: "Rice, wheat, soybeans, sugarcane, all sorts of fruits and vegetables... if you can eat it anywhere in the trigon, it's probably grown here. Except for seaweed, that's from Shui-Ti."
You point out that the foods grown here sound quite different from the ones Quin Ataraxis told you about.
Tsu-Ko: "He's a demon from Nan Yunjishan, so he's used to the provincial food there. Every Kirinese trigon has its own agricultural town, but depending on where it is, the food's different. You could say it gives every place its own flavour.
Anyway, it's only going to get warmer, so if you can't stand the heat, you'd best start looking for this bard of yours."
You nod, dreading the thought of the air getting any heavier. To the east is the village, where none of the buildings look particularly open to the public. The roads north and south fork and disappear into various distant farmlands. Kirin and unicorns are out and about their business, all seemingly wearing matching hats.
Enter a comment
If expedient, acquiring some culturally appropriate headwear wouldn't hurt. A conical hat would help with the sun and heat.
EDIT: The other alternative I thought of is samurai armor, but that probably isn't likely to be found here. And potentially disagrees with a hoof-to-hoof fighting style.
I suppose we could make a mental map of the area if we wanted while flying around, but mainly we want to find our guy.
Probably something only the author thinks about, but there seems to be a limit to the length of an update/the amount of information. Either it's a creative decision or it's a constraint to keep the writing work manageable. I kind of like how it might mirror the perceived passage of time, which corresponds to "information" (time "slows down" when presented with new or important information, and speeds up when doing rote tasks). Though I always keep wishing I could find out what happens next. 😆 In theory the writing could've kept going on because I think everyone probably agrees we need to search, though maybe there might be some slight differences as to the methods.
Hang in there Honourshine! Anecdotally, it seems to take three days of discomfort to get used to a change in outside temperature. Also, if we're having a hard time here, a pilgrimage to Shinzo seems rather fanciful. We might need some time to acclimate to the heat if we really want to meet the Emperor.
Hold on… so there are multiple groups of three towns connected by portals? And these are, unfortunately for travelers like us, separate "networks"? Did the Emperor design this system? I took the term "trigon" to refer to the grouping of Shui-Ti, Taihon-Nonchan, and Yinshin-Pintai.
The way I understand it, your destination depends on the side from which you enter the portal. So each portal can only send you to two different places. Presumably each portal in the network must also be connected to every other portal in said network. Otherwise you could just make a chain of portals that allows you to travel through the provinces without leaving the city limits. Likewise there must be a reason (Costs? Portals interfering with each other? Impossible to build new ones?) why you can't simply make a structure with multiple portals or build two of them next to each other.
Or if we want to go into conspiracy theory territory: The emperor purposely build the system that way to prevent unrestricted travel. For one reason or another.