Brokenly, Restored

Chapter #16

(Choco's POV)

We stay the night at Pete's siblings' house in one of the spare rooms. Honestly, I've always slept like a rock, and having an actual bed to sleep in was a welcome treat from the forest floor or wooden bow of a ship. Matt was restless by dawn, pacing around as Pete and I were still half asleep. He says that we could get to the coordinates late tonight if we hurry.

Vilion and Dalaina take us to the edge of the city on a route to avoid any soldiers. They're planning to get us some ranks and numbers for when we come back. I don't know what kind of danger we'll be in tonight, but I'm secretly glad that Pete is coming with us. It wouldn't feel right finishing this without him. I've grown so used to having both him and Matt around that I don't know if I'd even be ok by myself.

"I know it's all just trees, but I kinda expected something that looked different from GoldenEye", I comment. The three of us are walking down another dirt trail through the woods.

"The Sorcerer kingdom has plants very similar to GoldenEye, but people and animals are more effected by the thin walls", Matt says.

"Walls? What do you mean by that?", Pete asks, confused. Matt doesn't know, saying that he doesn't have an explanation beyond that.

It's nice, that for most of the day, Matt keeps us walking on a trail. We don't see many animals besides a few birds and bugs. Matt dragged Pete away from touching a large centipede, claiming that it's poisonous. Most of the day consisted of walking on the thin dirt trails. We had to cross one river, but it was more narrow and shallow then the last one in GoldenEye. Matt was able to step across it, nearly doing the splits. I jumped over, but Pete had wet feet for a few hours after.

Matt crosses several intersections in the roads and trails on his chosen route. We actually encounter another group of people. They're smarter then us, and have a wagon being pulled by a pair of horses. There's one Zemrlt, a bacca, and a human. It's a bit of an odd bunch, but no stranger then our own group. Matt stares them down until they turned the bend and we're out of sight. They were all thoroughly creeped out by him.

The moon started to set, and still we kept walking. Matt finally went off trail and the going got a lot tougher. The moon and stars are really bright tonight. I'm thankful. The uphill climb would be a lot worse without the light. I'm already tripping over roots and rocks as it is.

An hour after sunset, we stumble out of the woods and into a small plateau. The forest surrounds three sides of it with the cliff face of a mountain straight ahead. I can already see a small, wooden building built next to the mountain. The back of it almost looks it's slotted into the mountain. Matt doesn't even stop walking to say anything or explain.

"Do you think that's where Matt's trying to go?", Pete asks me, confused.

"It must be, but I expected some big metal building that looks more like the lab. That looks more like a shack than a secret base", I shrug, just as confused, "Is this the place Matt?".

He only answers when I repeat myself, saying, "No. My coordinates are located inside the mountain itself".

"Inside the mountain? Now that sounds more like a secret base", Pete laughs a little.

We get to the little wooden building to find that the door is locked. Matt grabs the door handle, snaps it off, and pushes the door open. That's one way to do it, I guess. The inside is completely bare with a dirt floor. The only feature is another door directly across from the one Matt just broke. It's made of metal, and has a keypad that looks straight out of the old lab.

"Well, now we know we're in the right place", I mumble a little nervously. We haven't seen any people, but who knows what's on the other side of this door? There could be even more experiments locked up with their own cruel scientists. And we're walking in right through the front door.