<strong>Point Respite Magna Sophia chapter house common room</strong><br/><br/>Catherine rose one more time, offering Aeryn a quick, businesslike kiss on the cheek and nodding politely to each of the other women in the room. "Come back safe," she said. "Dra Sirdu punishes carelessness harshly, even within the walls of the city. Hopefully Doctor Ishimi will have recovered fully enough that she can speak with you next time. She's certainly more suited to this business than I am."<br/><br/>The doctor returned to her meal, waving a final farewell to the group once they had actually gotten everything together and resolved to depart.<br/><br/><strong>On the streets of Point Respite and then out into the wild</strong><br/><br/>The morning was still young, but at least in the chapter house's neighborhood, relatively few people were out and about. In large part, this was because of the relative lack of soldiers as compared to the day before. They could be seen here and there, but mostly as large packs moving about determinedly in the distance. Maybe Vin had aligned their own mission with some larger troop movements?<br/><br/>The civilian populace, to the extent that it existed, didn't seem particularly aware of whatever might be going on. As usual, the group got a few distracted stares, but they didn't hold any particular hostility or surprise, and some some people even raised a hand in casual greeting. For the most part, however, even Erianthe didn't get too much attention. The day of arrival had served as an excuse to gawk and stare, but now the townsfolk seemed determined to accept them as normal (or at least unimportant in their oddness).<br/><br/>Nobody attempted to stop them as they passed through the main gates, a lax custom that Lazerette would have noted the day before, as well. People (mostly penal laborers, by their distinctive facial scarring) came and went, and the gate had a good dozen heavily armed men guarding it, but nobody seemed particularly worried about unpleasant surprises being smuggled in with the bushes of grain and baskets of vegetables.<br/><br/>The land directly surrounding the city had been converted into farmland and neatly divided by crop type. Anyone with a<strong>fair</strong>understanding of agriculture would observe that the plots were currently in the process of being replanted in a proper rotational fashion. The Dominion had at least had the sense to bring along someone with enough knowledge of good growing technique to inform them that far.<br/><br/>More obviously, and exceptionally, the growing season was just on the far side of half over on the mainland while the. Nils's mention of a quickened growing speed had been, if anything, a gross understatement. Beyond the fields, at the abrupt transition between cultivated ground and the woods beyond, the native fauna took this to the logical extreme. Despite the massive piles of freshly-cut brush in the border strip, knee-high shrubs crowded the ground, making the going quite difficult. Whatever had allowed the city to feed itself on such a relatively small semicircle of costal soil paled in comparison to the effect it had on local plants.<br/><br/>Unsurprisingly, no paths existed in the dense undergrowth beyond the fields, leaving the explorers to cut their own path. Or, at least, simply work their way through independently.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">To Adventure!</div><div class="spoiler_body">We're finally out of town, hooray! A small clarification: the fact that things are growing weirdly is totally obvious. It's at least a few square miles of growth. Not easily ignored. The roll is for proper agricultural understanding: probably Lore (and, again, Fair/+2).</div></div>