Cultivating Plants

As it would appear, nomads traveled very lightly and had very few resources to spare. The reason why Ibrahim's mother was willing to sell milk was because they were capable of producing it while moving.

However it may be, Aloe did get her hands on some pita, cheese, and jerky. Someone offered soup, but she turned down that offer as it was too cumbersome to carry. Unfortunately enough, all that cheap and awful food ended up costing her ten drupnari in total when taking into account the milk.

She could have eaten good food for a whole month with all that money, and she barely had obtained enough traveling rations for a week.

What bothered her wasn't the money as such, but that such an amount could leave a trail back to her. Or more exactly, her presence.

Right now, no one had the capacity to know where she was, unless the assassins had some arcane abilities she was unaware of. But she would rather avoid thinking about it in case she jinxed herself.

Ibrahim and others offered her a space in her caravan because she had been polite, but mostly because they didn't want to see a small girl traveling the desert alone. Aloe was aware that if she was in their shoes herself, it would make her gut retch seeing so.

Nonetheless, Aloe dismissed them saying she was in a rush, and that she knew how to take care of herself. No one believed that, not even herself, but all the nomads bid her goodbye by wishing her safe travels and the aid of The Traveler.

She didn't know much about the nomadic mythos, but a wandering traveler-merchant wouldn't help her that much unless the legendary man was willing to sell her some food and drink.

Aloe was quick in her foot, not enough to raise the suspicion of the nomads, but enough to outrun them. This was mostly because she was using the recovery internal infusion instead of haste.

One would think that using recovery would slow her down – which it technically did as she was, indeed, physically slower – but being tireless and needing to breathe way less meant she could be in a nearly infinite jog without losing her pace.

In retrospect, it shouldn't have been surprising that not needing to rest, not tiring, and not needing to breathe would have made even a stroll march faster than a mad dash.

Even then, it took Aloe a whole hour to finally lose line of sight of the nomads. It was then that she noticed that without haste she wasn't that fast. She may have been running for days now, but there had been months when she hadn't even taken a step before that. And even if she had walked with some degree of normalcy, her legs couldn't compare to the march-tempered ones of the nomads.

Nurture was, after all, about multipliers.

That was something that she wouldn't and couldn't forget. The stronger, faster, healthier, and so on she built her body, the more increase she would see even with her pitiable levels of vitality.

She may have almost twice as much vitality as Naila Asina, but she was one of the youngest sultanzade considering the oldest was forty-seven and she was sixteen. And one couldn't forget that Aaliyah had had a child every year since her first one plus one pair of twins.

Once the sultanzade became fifteen, their mother would introduce them to Nurture by force, meaning that she was competing at the same level as someone who had had access to Nurture for less than two years.

Sure, she had only had one year herself, but Evolution seemed to synergize with Nurture far more than their barbaric reaping to grow their vitality reserves. If she wanted not to just run away but… do something more drastic, then she had to grow even more.

Even after all that she had suffered on Sadina alone, Aloe could confidently say that she only hated two people.

Herself and Aaliyah-al-Ydaz.

Whilst her self-hatred only grew as she grew older and there was no sign of ever stopping, she could deal with the latter.

But for now, she ran.

She switched recovery off, almost relinquishing the virtual six-hour rest she had, and wielded haste. Following the road would likely lead her to a city in days, if not hours, but that was dangerous.

Aloe forwent the road for the dunes, preferring the shade of the shifting and ephemeral mountains of electrum. However, she was not dim enough to get herself that far from the road after finally having found it. But neither was she willing to risk staying close. She opted for a middle ground. Ish.

Every rest and night, she would try to get to the tallest dune she could find and switch to acuity for a moment if she could spot civilization.

Dunes weren't that tall, most at least. Some reached tens of meters in height, but only because the surrounding ones were equally as tall and valleys equivalently as deep. Either way, for the end of the current day that was…

"No, I can't lose count this soon." Aloe shook her head and began counting with her fingers. "F-fourth, right?" She expressed with a hint of fugacity. "Right, right. Tomorrow's the fifth on the run."

On the night of the fourth day, Aloe had yet to see a city or a village. Not that she was particularly worried – especially after meeting with the nomads – because she hadn't been searching for civilization until now. It was most likely that she had gone by some small villages already but just didn't notice because she hadn't really used it until now.

And whenever she was resting, she was using recovery. This meant that her eyesight was slightly diminished as her every other physical attribute that weren't covered by the infusion.

All in all, her diminished attributes weren't affecting her that badly. Nurture demanded to know when it was the right time to use any given stance, and so far, she hadn't failed that task.

Like any previous morning, Aloe woke up on the fifth day and had breakfast. The only exception being milk instead of water.

"Ah~" The woman moaned. "Milk hits differently in the morning. Ah, gotta love it."

She, of course, ignored the fact that the milk was rather rancid from the heat. Though it was currently cool-ish as the sun had yet to sear the sands for the day.

The fugitive repeated her daily patterns. Run, scry, rest. Run, scry, rest.

The first time she noticed she was making any actual progress was when the horizon gained a white tinge.

"I'm close to the Whistling Sands." Aloe mused at the apex of the tallest dune.

Unlike the cream-slash-beige-slash-electrum color of the average sand in the Qiraji, the Whistling Sands had a whiter shade. Some said that in some parts the sand got so white that they hurt to look at it as they became a mirror for the sun.

Renewed with that finding, Aloe pressed forward knowing that there should be a city close by to the border of the main Qiraji and the Whistling Sands. And beyond that, the Ridged Highlands and Loyata awaited her.

The fugitive girl continued her path with zeal, ignoring both mental and physical fatigue. After having restocked her rations, she felt far more hopeful, especially with the milk. The little things, like better food, allowed her to walk further without truly reaching the rock bottom of her psyche.

It wasn't until the early night that she noticed something on the horizon.

The desert expanded infinitely everywhere the eye could reach, but even the dimmest candlelight was a blaze in the darkness of the night. It was small and dim, but Aloe could see the hint of light dispelling the darkness at the edge of the horizon.

She should have stopped and rested as it was getting truly dark, but the light called to her. Civilization was dangerous for someone like her, but nature was equally lethal. If she could have the comfort of walls, a roof, food, and light… then that was preferable to the outdoors.

Her dash couldn't be called less than mad, especially because she hadn't rested for hours as she intended the final rest of the day to be the one when she slept, but Aloe powered through the pain and fatigue to reach that near-fading light.

But as the walls became bigger and bigger as she closed by, fear overcame her. Isn't a random traveler at night too suspicious? She questioned. What if the guards stop me and they already have my face?

Aloe trembled on the road, already having switched out haste for acuity as the movement-boosting infusion was too detectable even for non-cultivators. Should I switch to subterfuge and try to infiltrate the city? The murderer fidgeted with her fingers. But I don't know how to do that. Do I just climb over the wall? But for that, I would need to switch to either potency or haste, which would make me more detectable…

She had been walking forward all this time whilst thinking, and before she even noticed, she stood right before the city walls. Aloe almost jumped on the spot when she realized that her thoughts were so sluggish yet her senses so uncanny that the first thing she detected was the slow breathing of the guards right next to her.

Or rather, still at their positions. But it certainly didn't feel like that with acuity boosting her senses of hearing and touch.

Shyly, Aloe pranced forward as the nighttime guards didn't raise a voice, simply taking steps forward. And she continued. And continued.

Before long, the petite woman was inside the city, though her heart was beating faster than it had beaten before.

Okayokayokay. She told herself. That went well. Really, really well. Easier than I thought. Marveloustastic. Yup. Surprisingly enough, Aloe was more nervous after passing through the guards than before. She continued walking forward until the guards were no longer audible even to her enhanced hearing and allowed herself to exhale.

"Alright, what now." She found herself in an unknown city, of unknown size, of unknown, and at a very late hour. "Everything must be closed except taverns or brothels… two places I can get a bed if I'm desperate enough."

Unless she found an inn with a tavern, finding a bed there would be hard. Contrary to popular belief, innkeepers went to sleep early. Or that was the image Aloe had as the very few times she needed a bed outside her home, it had been horrendous to find an open inn.

"An inn feels too dangerous." Aloe silently talked to herself as she wandered the empty and mostly dark streets. At least tonight the moon was bright. "If they are going to look for fugitives, especially me, they are going to search in inns. Which leaves… two less than pleasing options."

Aloe held her need to groan and instead took a deep breath of the chilly night air.

"One I've mentioned, the… brothels." She rolled her eyes. "I definitely can get a bed there. No one would judge me, and it would be more discrete, but… I rather prefer not to. And the other… sleeping on the streets." A shiver in her spine shook her. "How curious that I can sleep outdoors in the harsh desert without problems, but I do the same in the streets I get the heebie-jeebies."

After much pondering, Aloe decided to sleep on the streets like the rat she was. She was too anxious and mentally depleted to go to a brothel just to ask for a bed, even if they were more than willing to offer one to her. Especially if… well, she truly used it. For better or worse, only really for worse, she had more experience as a prostitute than a customer.

Before dozing off in the first alleyway she found, the fugitive first searched for any source of fresh water that she could find. Unlike Sadina, there weren't canals – as shallow as they had been – in this city, if this outpost could even be considered that, but it didn't take her long to find a well.

The first bucket she drank in a single go, the full bucket, without breathing. Chugging like a drunkard, or more accurately and respectfully, a dehydrated desert traveler. The water was cold as the night and tasted of vainglory. But maybe too metallic. Aloe blamed that aftertaste on her active stance. The second bucket she used it to refill her waterskins.

Maybe it was paranoia talking, but she preferred to restock in water before anything else. Who knew what could happen? Being able to run away without complications at the first notice was her priority now.

As much as the idea of sleeping in an alley repulsed her, especially after having slept on imperial-quality beds – or literally imperial beds to much of her dismay – for these last months, resting on a dirty and dark street was quite the opposite.

Still, she preferred that to dying. Or being seen as promiscuous by strangers.

Her selected spot was one away from houses, behind some workshops, because there were no lights around and she would be gone before anyone could notice her at first light.

With a groan, Aloe lay down, embraced her backpack, vaguely sobbed, switched her internal infusion to recovery, and finally closed her eyes to sleep.

That worked fairly well.

Until someone stood in front of her.