Wetness from his face and hair fell to the ground like rain drops before a storm. His breathing was haggard. He had been biking all day. He had pushed himself to his limit. And yet, he wanted more; he knew how every hour, every day, he was away from his team only increased his risk for attack as well as their own. He didn't know where the Mentality fella had gone, and he could not guarantee he would remain unmolested by him during his trek back to the command center. Therefore, he had to have haste on his side.

  Which meant pushing himself to his limit, per the norm.

  If the first day of his return trip had been on the leisurely side and the second day was more serious, in terms of miles covered, then the third day was his time to shine. He cared not for scenery admiration or to even pace himself, he only cared about covering distance.

  Though he cared only for covering distance and not the many barren sites he saw along the way, he couldn't help but think: 'So many empty villages and destroyed homes. Where did all of these people go? Some ended up with us, at the command center, I guess. But what about the others? Has the Expanse taken so many prisoners?' The idea saddened him. He thought of the misery which must exist in the Expanse's processing camps. Slavery, abuse, death? It seemed to him unlikely even the Expanse could forgo the rules against killing set by the gods, but one never knew... if they could do it on the battlefield, then surely the Expanse's masters could do so in a forced labor camp...

  'Enough bad thoughts. Focus on the road,' he instructed himself.

  When the stars appeared in the sky he had arrived on the far outskirts of camp. Away, as a smudge on the horizon, he saw the command center rising like a great obelisk. 'No way I am getting there any sooner than midnight,' he thought. 'If that's the case, I should get a move on.'

  Yet, after a nasty false start with his bike, where he misjudged the location of the bike's peddle, he slipped and fell over, he thought better of his overexertion. 'How about a rest instead?' he offered to he. 'Sounds good, me,' he told himself and removed himself into the tree line away from the main road.

  He never wanted to spend very long searching for a resting site. But he also did not want to simply find an overturned tree log to sit upon. Just in case he fell asleep in his advanced sleepiness, he wanted to make sure he was safe from the few predators which lurked. For the time being, though, he did, in fact, find a log to lean against. This log, though, was protected on several sides from well-grown trees, shrubs, and rocks.

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  He reached into his satchel and had the rest of the dried papple fruit as well as a good few gulps of water, finishing his canteen. He would need to find a source of water soon. Assuming he was slow in covering the final stretch. Which he knew would not happen... he had to be prepared for any situation, though. It was his job as grandmaster-in-training. If he wasn't prepared, then the enemy already had a point in their favor.

  Thinking it had been fortunate for him to find such a resting place, he calmed his body, but soon found the need to investigate, just a little more, the secluded spot he discovered. It was then he found another oddity -- secured right in front of him but so heavily shielded by environmental circumstance as to be unseen by anyone except the most inquisitive of people and nosey of animals, he found another person's camp site.

  'Or what had once been a camp site,' he mused sardonically as he took in the site's rumpled carpet which someone had decided to plop onto the forest's floor. Among the former camp site was a good deal of clutter. Trash, really, he surmised. Broken kettles and cups, the rot from half-eaten food, the violence of working the land for one's own gain. It wasn't anything too terrible. It was inconsiderate to camp and then not clean up after yourself, however.

  Zan spent a few minutes tidying the campsite and cleaning up. He put the junk matter into his satchel. He was sure someone back at the command center's camp could mend the damaged items for their own gain. 'Wait. What's this?' he muttered.

  It was a 'shiny.' A gleaming piece of some machine, by the looks of it. Having a quick back and forth with the Screen Master, he said it looked similar to the machines he had found some months ago when he had discovered that golem-manned research alcove near Thundervale. Back then, Simulacrum reminded him, he had discovered remnants of a machine meant to collect data on Slipstream movement and the flow of magic embedded in the land. The Screen Master had called such a machine 'trouble.' Another research site... "This can't be good, can it?" he asked the Screen Master. To which he received only the most barebones answer: "No. Not good at all..."

  Dozing off momentarily, he dreamed of absurd and silly, even tantalizing things. No grand gods this time, though when he woke, hazy and disoriented, remembering only bits of his eccentric dream involving naked people and singing, he had some wetness around his crotch which he wouldn't account for... which told him he had stayed here too long. Righting himself, he hiked up his pants, straightened out his shirt, and returned to the forest's edge.

  It was dark out. Which meant, if he still wanted to reach the command center by midnight, he had a lot of ground to cover. Sighing as though his mother had demanded he clean the house, he hopped back on his bike, peddled, and cursed his lack of magic to make it go faster. With Simulacrum in his ear urging him forward, he focused, peddled, and lost himself to the grind of the ride.