“What do you *mean* there’s no town over there, Wheeler?? There’s *got* to be a town over there. Or else I’m not *here*.” Baker Bloch was incredulous. He was *so* looking forward to playing the brand new role of bloodied werewolf Ditch Parkly, like Pitch Darkly but different.
“*Well*,” spoke over posing Wheeler, currently trying on different outfits for a new role herself, “there’s a new town sprouting where the old one was. Totally unrelated to the old one it seems. But it’s not finished at all. Maybe half built at best.” She reviews what she saw of it in her mind, and decides to amend. “Make that probably closer to 1/4th built.”
“Dang,” Baker shifts his heavy weight in his rocker. “Dag gonnit,” he cursingly doubles down on his frustration while softly pounding an armrest.
“Why don’t we hike those peaks over there so we can get a better look.” She glances over her shoulder out the window for Baker at the two summits juxtaposed with each other from her angle. Eclipsed, even, with just a whiff of the top of the second, more distant one peeking out from the first.
“Nah, I’m just going to give up on the Southwest right now,” he decides spur of the moment. “All the signs are here. We’re *both* blocked from that castle on the BoShek peak for some reason, along with Axis. What did we *do* up there that was *so* wrong?”
“Maybe just show up. We could send others from the core in,” Wheeler then suggested during another wardrobe change.
“Yeah — guess so.” His mind goes back to all the rest: Baker Blinker (recently taking on a new role herself in Jack Blue!), Karoz Blogger, Roger Pine Ridge, so on. Yeah, that could work. But *here*. Baker Bloch changes his mind about going to the peaks to view the emerging burg.
—–
“Still can’t see enough from this green peak, Wheeler. We’ll have to advance to the next one, the granite topped summit.” He makes a mental note to write down in his journal later: “Granite over green. The story of the continent itself.”
About 2/3rds the way up the much higher of the summits, Wheeler’s energy ran low enough that she had to switch back to her base outfit, her true or core self. Baker Bloch once again thinks this may be the exact spot to kill off the still dangerous Wheeler. With his own, bloodied hands he could do it. Watch the expression of her dying. But Axis would kill him in turn, he knew. He was playing chess on a three-dimensional board and he hardly knew what was up and down at any one moment. What is a peak, what is a sink? He actually liked hiking up a steep mountain like this. Gave him some solid direction.
“Come on, Wheeler,” he urged, letting the violent impulse pass, probably a byproduct of his current shape. “You’re falling behind again.”
Sunklands 