9. Knight’s Ascent

Christie couldn't say that she enjoyed journeying much. Her constitution was already frail as it was, but the constant movement of the carriage only made it worse. Actually, everything made it worse. The fact that they couldn't allow themselves to stop around because of the tight deadline to make it to Knight's Ascent in time was horrendous. Journeying meant exploring to her who had been bound to the family estate most of her life, yet all the exploration she was doing was through the window of the carriage…

She was thankful to Adrien for those times when they stopped at night when they reached a somewhat decent establishment to eat and sleep, but otherwise, she found herself brooding all the time. This was the first time she had left the Valasela Estate, and she spent all the time sitting on her buttocks.

Her luggage was quite massive, with nearly all the carriage covered and loaded with her belongings, and she was still eating through her books. At first, she had tried to read some scholarly books, but she soon found out that reading treatises on local soil quality on a carriage ride was quickly deteriorating her mental state, so she had to switch to more… entertaining books.

Miss Diorite had gifted her with books from her private collection, and Christie was thankful for it, but… they were far too steamy! She understood the appeal of romance and their countless stories, but the head maid had a liking far more extreme than hers. In one story, a princess and a knight kissed each other on the lips and held both of their hands together. One is fine, but both of them?

How indecorous!

Christie had been blushing the entire next hour because of it, and that was the first time she was actually thankful for the silence and tranquility of the ride; otherwise, her heart would have lurched out of her chest if Adrien had directed to her during that period. Yet the undeniable truth was that the more she read, the more hooked she was. And slowly but surely, even the handholding was becoming child's play from the most… extreme things that occurred in the novels.

"How are you not tired, mock turtle?" She asked François during a lunch break, if only to cool down the growing heat in her cheeks and ears.

"Hah…" The stoneshell raised his face and grunted in displeasure as he had his lunch interrupted.

"I mean, I guess you are resting when you eat and when we stop at inns and whatnot, but what if you did not have the need to eat? Could you go on forever?"

"Hoh." Whether that grunt was an affirmation or a negation, Christie knew not the answer, only that François went back to his grassy food.

Lazily, Christie walked back to the caravanserai. Her carriage was the only one being hosted by the old stone building. The road stops of the caravanserai were very old edifications with tinges of agate vein that repelled monsters, or so she had been taught. Beyond the occasional stoneshell that wasn't François, Christie couldn't say she had ever seen a monster, even if they popped up in tales quite often. Not in romance though. People only wanted people in romance, which she felt was a lost opportunity.

There were a lot of mythoi surrounding the structures of the caravanserai, but as much as she had tried to find knowledge about them, the redhead girl had only managed to find fairytales and not any actual information. She was only mildly interested in them, but the lack of documentation infuriated her to the point that she wanted to know more about them out of spite.

"Do you know about the caravanserai?" Christie asked Adrien, who was having a sandwich in the shade of the structure.

The coachman raised a finger indicating for her to wait as he masticated the food in his mouth. Only when he gulped it down did the man speak. "I cannot say much about them, lady."

"But are you not always using them?" Her comment was not sarcastic, just an innocent note.

"Aye," Adrien nodded. "But what I know is something you already know or… nonsense."

"I am going to be honest with you here," the dressed girl sat down on the stone bench and sighed. "I could do with nonsense."

The burly coachman smiled at that comment. "Well, one of the theories I personally adscribe to…"

"Ascribe," Christie interjected. "The word is ascribe."

"Right, sorry," his smile didn't falter, but the girl swore he saw his eyes slightly roll up. "One of my favorite theories is that the caravanserai sprouted from agates."

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"Sprouted?" She squinted.

"Yeah. Agates bursting from the ground. Sometimes it happens, especially when there are monsters around."

"Are these agates…?"

"Not that I know of," Adrien responded before she finished her question, already imagining what it might be. "So the theory goes that people just build shelters around these sprouted agate veins as the soil is depleted."

"Depleted in what sense?"

"Mmm… I do not think I should be talking about this…"

"Why? Is it a secret?" Christie's bicolored eyes suddenly sparked with interest.

"No, nothing of that sort, lady. Just that I am not really suited to speak about these things. Your father would scold me if I taught you incorrect facts."

"I think I am more than able to judge by myself, Adrien," the girl straightened her back and talked with noble-like rectitude. "Let me be able to take things with a grain of salt."

"Alright," he shrugged. "There is this… thought, nothing confirmed, just a popular legend, that when an agate or monsters sprout from the ground, that place becomes depleted of agates and therefore no more monsters can appear. So it is not that the caravanserai repel monsters, but that around them cannot appear. Of course, wandering ones do not factor in that equation."

"I see…" Christie rubbed her underlip deep in thought. "So if a monster were to be undetected and prowled around until it reached a caravanserai…"

"The structure would do nothing. The stoneshells can get close to them, see?" He pointed at mocking François who was scouring clean the grounds surrounding the stone shelter.

"Huh…" The girl deflated upon hearing the answer.

"What is wrong, Christie?" Adrien asked with worry upon seeing her sorry state. There weren't many times that he referred to her by anything that wasn't 'lady', but he was the only one in the state who called her Christie.

"Nothing, Adrien," she giggled softly. "I kind of expected a big revelation of the caravanserai, but this one is just… boring."

The coachman chuckled. "Life tends to be boring. Just look at our journey."

"Yeah…" Christie sighed. "I am reading and all, but you are just… staring into the horizon. How are you still sane?"

"Bold of you to assume I am sane, lady," Adrien stood up from the stone bench. "But you discredit boredom. There is no greater feeling than that."

"Really?" She followed in kind and also stood up. Though she dusted the skirt of her dress afterward.

"If you are bored, that means that you are not in danger. And most people would say that not being in danger is peace. And peace is good. Is it not?"

"I… feel that there have been some severe mental gymnastics there, Adrien."

"Tell that to my old drinking mates," the man chuckled again. "They used to say I was incapable of anything mental, but if you – quite the mentally dotted girl – are meriting my mental capabilities, then that means I must be doing well."

"I would say 'meriting' is a strong word, here…"

"Eh," Adrien shrugged. "Now we should get going before François turns this place into a desert. There is not that much longer before we make it to Knight's Ascent."

They returned to the road, much to Christie's boredom, and the surroundings merged into a blurry canvas of green, blue, and brown again. She truly did her best to enjoy the slowly moving environment, but the speed was just exactly slow enough to make that impossible. It took too long for the scenery to change as they travelled with a stoneshell. Sure, the travel could have been done way faster with horses, but she didn't want to make her first travel ever without François. Though she was kind of regretting that decision now.

It didn't take her long to go back to Miss Diorite's books, as spicy as they were. Christie still couldn't understand how or why the head maid – as conservative as she was – would show her such steamy romances. Is this the tamest one? Christie would ask herself each time she would start one of the tales, only to end as reddened as her hair by the epilogue. Never before had she seen that much indecency in her life, but… she couldn't stop reading. It was because the alternative would have been dreadful boredom and clearly no other ulterior motive. Of course.

Soon, the sun gave in to the night, and Adrien used his agates to illuminate the carriage. Christie would have loved to help with the lighting, but alas, her agates were too unruly to perform such delicate work. If she tried to liberate a single agate from her body, a whole pillar of agate would instead materialize on the carriage compartment. And whilst the added weight wouldn't affect François much, if she were to endow that pillar of agate with the Light command, they might be left blind. Which was, obviously, not a good outcome.

Before she knew it, the rocking of the carriage and the soft light of the coachman's agates cradled her in a sweet drowsiness. By the time Christie woke up, the sun was already starting to flare in the sky.

"Lady! Wake up!" Adrien announced frantically.

"Is there something wrong?" She jumped on her feet expecting the worst.

Instead, the coachman laughed heartily and spoke. "Here we are! Knight's Landing!"

With eyes flaring with expectation, Christie took her head outside of the carriage's window and was met by a surreal sight.

Knight's Ascent was the capital of the Kingdom of Crocheta, and it showed. Christie had never seen so many buildings together and with that many stories. Even the pavement was a sight to behold with its many decorative patterns and complete coverage of the city. The cities she had previously seen near her state seemed paltry villages in comparison just for the fact alone of not being covered in pavement and instead only boasting dirt roads. It was completely impossible to believe that such a colossal city was only a handful of decades old.

Yet all that monolithic and metropolitan construction paled in comparison to the fantastical sight in the skies.

Past the environs of Knight's Ascent, lay a massive crater. Yet what mattered wasn't on the earth but the sky. Atop the crater, many hundreds of meters in the sky awaited a massive edification with thick walls and tall towers. A castle worthy of a fairytale that defied logic and remained anchored in the heavens. The namesake of the capital.

That was the Skyscraper Academy.