I heft the bag of food that Baby got from Barabar, shoving it into the subspace even though I don't smell any of the happy drink inside it. [Why do we need this again? We're going to Xylphys, not my old forest.]

Baby grins at me. "That might be the case, but Barabar food is excellent on a variety of levels. The only delicacy that isn't onboard the Travelling Tavern is the famous Xylphys hot dog."

I tilt my head. [What's a hot dog?]

He laughs. "Null, in all honesty, you can never go back to normal food again after you eat one of those."

That sounds ominous. Perhaps I should avoid eating them just in case.

Joule had exited my body at some point, and I can feel the tiny drain of void energy connecting myself to her this time.

Squinting over the banister, she asks, "What's with all the smoke? Is the city on fire?"

Looking in the same direction, I can indeed see a lot of smoke rising from the patchy clouds near us.

Dylan answers for her, walking towards us with a new hat, a big blue one with a feather. "No, that's just the furnaces. Everyone in Xylphys excels in something, which they get to pick when they reach their teens. We've found that investing all of your skill points and experience into one occupation can seriously make you a threat."

It makes sense that exclusively working on one thing would make you better at it, but what did he mean by skill points? I'll ask later.

The door opens in the wooden wall to our side, and the Woodsman appears. "I am glad to see you leave."

Baby and Alice seem a little offended until he clarifies. "I am glad to see the ant leave. You two are welcome here anytime."

[I dislike you as well.]

He nods his satisfaction, replying, "Tell Noah that I will one day tear his head from his shoulders."

[I don't think that would end well.]

Joule places a hand on my carapace, turning me towards the door carefully. "All right, let's go before anyone gets hurt. And I'm not talking about him, Null."

[I could beat him.]

"No, you certainly couldn't."

[Noah could beat him.]

"You're not Noah. Let's just go, all right?"

I wish I could glare as well as Alice at times like these, but my face doesn't really support that sort of thing.

The moment we exit the door, the leg planted just several hundred feet from the wall lifts up into the clouds and vanishes. As Barabar walks away, I get a better look at it from underneath and see that the underside is incredibly well-armored, a variety of barreled weapons extending from it with glass balls mounted at the base of each one. There are eight legs in total, each one so far away that my vision blurs.

Alice hiked her bag up on her shoulder, turning to me. "I don't suppose there's any chance you'd be willing to pay us in advance?"

I look at her curiously tilting my head. [Why would I do that? We already agreed that I would give you all of it when we got to Lymphadra.]

Baby chuckles. "She wants some extra gold for souvenirs. I was thinking the same thing, actually."

Dylan laughs. "Guys, guys. I can get you the best deals in Xylphys."

We all look at him in surprise. Confidence is not something we've come to expect from Dylan.

He shrinks slightly, hastily adding, "I mean, it's up to you. You know - you can do what you want to. I just wanted to let you know that I knew people who could give us a cheaper..." He trails off nervously, ending with an anxious chuckle.

Joule shakes her head. "Dylan, you might want to work on that confidence of yours. As for Xylphys, we're not here to be tourists. We're here to find that library and quantify everything."

[Aren't we here to make sure the guild doesn't hunt me down?]

She waves dismissively. "You'd be fine. Emergency conditions and all that."

The humans seem interested in what Joule means by that, and I focus my telepathy so only she can hear me.

[Joule, we still don't know what emergency conditions is. For all we know, we might never be able to use it again.]

She responds with telepathy as well, frowning at me. [Says the ant who made it his main plan.]

[That was a bad idea on my part. It should have activated when the Kadaialon pinned me, but it didn't. How do you know that the stucat Ruler wasn't the last time we could use it?]

A short moment later, she answers, this time with a slight tinge of concern. [Maybe I should try and synthesize the defensive abilities of the stucats. They could prove helpful if your theory turns out to be right, though I still think that it would be like Noah to build something like that into your system.]

[I'm not taking any chances.]