Now that Moana had joined their little group, life was getting much easier for Evangeline. The Leviathan was not only incredibly skilled at finding people and things with her magic, but she was also better at bribing and coercing Laura into behaving.
The Opal Prismatic Dragon had not taken her newfound freedom well, and was at a bit of a loss, filling in the emptiness in her thoughts with constant social interaction. Now that they were free individuals, even the clones couldn't communicate directly with each other without a specific skill allowing them to.
That was hard for Laura, who was used to constantly asking herself for advice, and balancing her ideas against the other copy of herself, just to make sure that she thought it was an entirely good idea.
None of the other Companions thought quite this way, treating their clones more like twin sisters, so it wasn't as bad for them, though Nila did find that the newfound inability to merge with herself was an issue. Now there were properly two of them, but they shared the same wife.
They would adapt quickly enough though, it would just take a little time to get everyone the skill to rejoin the shared consciousness.
"Now that we have a good idea where the End of the World place is, should I bring us there with a portal, so we can narrow down our search zone?" Moana asked, eager to get this mission completed so that they could return to other tasks, like harassing the Merfolk.
It had become one of her favorite pastimes. Teleport in, summon Leviathans into the ocean, watch everyone panic, and teleport out.
"We might as well. But once we find the right spot, you should bring Cain and the others to us and let them do the hard work. Wandering around the continent looking for one single elf is a lot of traveling and Evangeline won't let me stop for snacks." Laura suggested.
"Deal. I am going to bring us to the mountain pass that they described, since it's easy to locate, and then we can get better directions from the locals." Moana decided.
That was good enough for the others, and Evangeline happily flew through the portal, eager to get this done with the mission and get back to her own clone. She was beginning to realize that the reason she could keep up her polite and righteous Seraphim act was that she could constantly complain about the people she met in her mind. Without that outlet, she was in imminent danger of ruining her species' reputation.
Plus, the other one was comfortably back at the farm and she was stuck out here, forced to wear clothes all the time. Like, all day long, it was just ridiculous. Maybe the next village they came to would be clothing optional, or she could have Moana send her back to the Elves, they had a much more healthy view of the necessity of clothing than most species did, in Evangeline's estimation.
The mountain pass that they arrived in gave the group a breathtaking view of a large tropical valley, with a waterfall flowing out of the hills near them to form a five-branched river that flowed out of sight toward the ocean.
"Not bad. Plus, there is a guard patrol right over there, so we can ask them which of the villages in this valley might be the one that we are looking for." Laura cheered, transforming into her Dragon form for higher flight speed and racing toward the group of startled Youkai.
They were well within the borders of the territory, there shouldn't be interlopers here, but somehow, there were three of them, and two were even Mythic Rank creatures.
There was a Seraphim with them though, so the guards relaxed a little, assured that a dragon traveling with an angel wasn't likely to directly attack them, but they still couldn't identify the blue-winged Pixie creature. None of the creatures on this planet had seen a Void Clan Leviathan in tens of thousands of years, and it had been even longer since anyone had seen one in a humanoid transformation.
"Greetings, I am Laura, a Companion of the Ancient Cain. We are looking for a Librarian. Or an elf named Librarian maybe? Or even just an Ancient book would be a good start. Do you happen to know anything about that?" The hyper Dragon asked.
"The Librarian? Yes, she is at the End of the World." The guard agreed, nodding his head.
"And that might be where?" Laura asked.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot that there aren't any maps of this place, since we all know where everything is and visitors usually get an escort. It is almost directly in the center of the valley, near a dimensional portal that gave the location its name. The saying was that if anything ever came through from that portal it would be the end of the world, so eventually, the whole village got named after it." The Tengu explained.
"That makes perfect sense. But can I ask a question? Are most Tengu wings shades of gray? I have only seen black shades so far, did you have a Seraphim ancestor to make your wings lighter?" Laura asked before Evangeline grabbed her.
"Forgive the Dragon, her mental link to the collective was severed yesterday, and she has been in desperate need of someone to talk to." The Seraphim apologized.
"And then she looted a candy store and loaded up on more sugar than any living being should ever consume," Mona added, making the guards laugh.
"Oh, the joys of youth. Come with me young Dragon, and I will tell you a grand tale of the valley while we walk to the end of the world." The guard laughed, holding out his hand to signal his patrol to go on without him.
Though they could actually see their destination from here, it was nearly two hundred kilometers away. If they were walking the whole way, it was going to take a lot of time.
Moana quietly memorized the location so she could open a portal there, and then sent a message with the coordinates to her clone, so she could send Cain and the others, while the guard led the trio of Companions through the valley at a leisurely pace, telling the whole story of the valley, beginning over a thousand years in the past.
