Chapter 98: Herbivore

FieryKathy

Our walking car chugs along the road quite pleasantly for the next couple of hours. The rythmic thumping of its legs almost helping me to fall asleep on multiple occasions. However I decide to keep awake and look at the different landscapes that flow by. When we left the first forest we ended up on a plateau with far stretching grasslands and only a couple of trees dotted on it. After that we entered another forest but this one was mostly made out of trees I’d not seen before on our travels. The bark had a grayish hue and the leaves were bright purple.

“Do you know what these trees are, Sam?” I ask my girlfriend who’s looking around with me.

“Not sure. It looks similar to a birch, except for the size and colour. I will call this the Amitree for now.” 

“Wha-? Why?” 

“Because of your hair.” She smiles and runs her hand in between my ears. 

“My hair is piiiink.”

“Eh, purple, pink, same difference.” She laughs. 

“Buuu.” I pout. 

“Isn’t it weird that we haven’t seen any animals yet?” Nikki comments as she’s looking the other way with my sister. 

“I don’t know, the grass is pretty tall and this machine isn’t exactly silent or hard to spot.” Sam replies. “I’ve already seen a couple of birds so it’s not like there aren’t animals at all.” 

“I wasn’t exactly counting birds though.” 

“That’s rude. What have our dinosaurs friends ever done to you?” Élise jokes.

“Oh! Now that’s a good point.” Hilda looks behind her for a second before turning her eyes back to the road. 

“What is?” I ask. 

“On our world birds are closely related to dinosaurs, right?” She starts. “Do you think this world also has dinosaurs or not?” 

“Uhm, I don’t know. But this world got created by a God, right? So evolution shouldn’t really have mattered.” Sam rubs her chin. 

“But didn’t Veanya say that our world also had a God? And we have proof that dinos existed.” 

“Huh… good point...” 

“Just when you thought the entire discussion between creationists and evolutionists was over we’ve accidentally opened the debate again.” My sis laughs. 

Then suddenly the car comes to a halt. 

“Hilda?” I look over to the driver seat where I see Hilda staring with her mouth open at something in front of us. “What is it?”

“I think we just answered the dinosaur question.” She points ahead of us and everyone stands up in the passenger car to be able to see. 

In the distance we can quite clearly see a dinosaur standing in the middle of the road. 

“Oh! It’s a pricklysaur!” 

Sam snorts. “Ami, that’s called a Stegosaurus.” 

“That’s what I meant.” I pout again.

“Wow, who’d ever thought we’d see dinosaurs in real life.” My sis comments. I can see a sparkle in her eye.

“It really is amazing isn’t it.” Hilda says, her mouth almost wide open. 

“It is, but it also is kindoff blocks our road.” Nikki replies. 

“Hmm. I’m pretty sure Stegosaurus are herbivores but I’d rather not take any chances with something that’s built like a tank. Let’s just sit here for a while until it has moved.” Hilda turns the key of the vehicle and the engine goes quiet. 

“That’s probably not a bad decision.” Sam sits down again. 

“Hey, but if there’s a pricklysaurus here, doesn’t that mean there’s also things like the T-Rex?” I ask the group. 

“T-Rexes lived way later than your pricklysaurus, Ami. Wait...” 

“Yeah, the time-line is a bit out of whack, isn’t it?” Hilda chuckles. “Let’s hope they just didn’t evolve like that, somehow, otherwise we might have a bad time.” She takes out her binoculars and starts looking around the area. 

My sis gulps “Yeah, let’s hope to not encounter an apex predator dinosaur, I’d very much prefer that even if my sis can probably turn it into a T-bone steak.”

Sam just smiles at me and gives me a head pat.

Luckily, after a couple of minutes not a single T-Rex came to munch us and the pricklysaurus moved off the road. 

“Ah, looks like it’s time to go.” Hilda turns the key again and the engine roars back to life. 

We slowly move past where the dinosaur had been standing, but sadly, due to the denseness of the forest we can’t see it anymore.

The road through this forest goes on for a lot longer than through the other biomes which we drove through.

“Must be a big forest.” My sister says as she lays down on the seats next to her. 

Nikki lays down next to her girlfriend. “Let’s get some rest then. I’m getting a bit bored by the trees.”

I just cuddle up to Sam but decide to keep my eyes open. 

Some time later Hilda slows down the vehicle. Me and Sam look to the front and see the reason why. One of the trees near the road had snapped and blocked our way through. 

“Ambush?” I ask. 

“No, I don’t think so.” Hilda shakes her head. “I think this tree got hit by lightning. See how the scorch marks go through the bark?” 

“Must be a strong tree not to have exploded then.” Sam comments. 

“Probably.” Hilda drives the walker a bit closer.

“So, how are we going to go over? Need us to cut you a way through?” My sister and Nikki had gotten up and they were unstrapping an axe from my sister’s backpack. 

“Remember that feature I mentioned earlier?” Hilda looks down at the dashboard. “I kinda want to try it.” 

“Hmm, the rock climbing one?” Élise looks up. 

“Yeah.” Hilda presses the button. 

“Are you sure? Cutting it will be safer I think.” 

Hilda shrugs and chuckles “Eh, it’ll be fiiiine. Just… grab hold of something back there.” 

Before I can brace myself I’m already solidly held in place by my strong girlfriend while my sis and Nikki quickly grab hold of the iron handlebars on the sides of the walker. 

“Here we go.” The machine crawls up to the tree and suddenly the first section tils up. Swiftly followed by the second and then the third section. The rubber connectors giving plenty of flexibility. It didn’t even take 30 seconds before our vehicle had catterpillared it’s way over the tree. 

“See, it totally went fine and in the fraction of time too.”

“I never doubted you Hilda.” Sam replies with a smile. 

“Can we go again?” I laugh. 

“We will take it on a joyride over some rocky terrain if we have some time after getting the relic.” 

“Please don’t.” Lise laughs. “Or at least not with me in it.” 

The rest of the way to the Dwarger capital is quite peaceful with no more surprises waiting for us. The sun just starts to set as we reach the enormous gates of the walled city. The guards are clearly on high alert but don’t react hostile to our presence. 

“Halt there travelers.” One of the heavily armoured Dwarger guards raises his hand. He approaches us and stares at us for a moment. “I assume you are the ones Captain Mountainforge spoke about.” 

“We are.” Hilda replies. “We are supposed to give this to the city council.” She hands over the letter we received. 

The guard reads the front of the letter and then quickly hands it back. “The city council should still be open. Just follow the main street ‘till the square. It’s the big building. Please do keep to the right side of the road to avoid collisions.” 

“Got it.” Hilda puts the letter back in her jacket.

The guard steps back and signals to the top of the gatehouse. The gates almost immediately start to open. The guard then tells us to pass through which we swiftly do. 

Once inside we don’t immediately see lot’s of activity but the further we get the more people we start seeing around. Other machines move about as well, mainly transports but also the occasional military vehicle. To my surprise the people we see are a lot more diverse than when we were at the port town, people of taller races including some neko’te, ulusu and drakone.

“Nice.” My sister balls her fist. “Looks like we’ll be able to get some accomodation in this city.”

Sam sees me staring around and pokes my side. “Are you surprised to find other races here?” 

“A bit. Especially because we didn’t see any at the port town…” 

“It’s probable that they are only a minority so they stick to the bigger cities to find people like themselves a bit more easily.” Hilda slows down to give way to a walker coming from a street on the right. 

“And they got here during an ice age?” Nikki asks. 

“Maybe, but dinos exist so I should put that theory on hold.” She laughs as we pull into the large city square.

“Let’s go hand over this letter and then find a place to sleep because I’m completely exhausted.” Once Hilda has turned off the engine my sister jumps out of the back and stretches. “I’d definitely love to have a soft mattress to sleep on today.” 

“Me too.” Nikki takes her partner’s arm and waits for the rest of us to join them. 

Sam helps me off the back and once Hilda’s ready we all walk towards the biggest, and arguably the fanciest building on the square. 

FieryKathy