As Mosscap happily followed the villagers toward their respective requests, Dex found themself whisked off to a cookhouse and placed at the mercy of its proprietor, who seemed to resent the idea of anyone leaving his establishment underfed. Woodland folks cultivated small-scale crops, but they favored hunting and foraging, and the foods that appeared on Dex’s table in tantalizing succession fit those categories. They snacked on spicy pine seeds as the grill did its work, then gorged themself on slow-roasted elk and wavy-edged mushrooms and acorn flatbread freckled black with flame. A generous chunk of prickleberry cobbler was presented afterward, along with a bowl of mint leaves for Dex to munch in the afterglow. Even if Dex hadn’t been operating on days of dehydrated stews and protein bars, the meal would’ve been fantastic; within their current context, it was life-changing. They leaned back in their chair with their hands folded over their belly, savoring the indescribable satisfaction of having eaten wild things while trading breath with the trees.
The cookhouse’s eating area was an open platform overlooking the market square, suspended by an intricate crisscross of woven cables. Dex had taken a table near the railing so as to keep an eye on the goings-on below. Despite the branches jutting into view, Mosscap was impossible to miss. Its silver plating stuck out like a sore thumb amid the village’s palette of browns and woody whites, and its blue eyes shone in the filtered daylight. Dex watched Mosscap go this way and that, disappearing for a while, then heading elsewhere with a wrench or a can of paint in hand. Everywhere it went, an audience followed.
Dex chewed a mouthful of mint thoughtfully as they watched Mosscap cross the square once more, this time helping someone carry a heavy sack of something or other. They were certain that helping villagers with physical tasks was not the end goal of Mosscap’s question. If it went on for too long, Dex was inwardly resolved to put a stop to it. They didn’t want people treating Mosscap like a circus act or, worse, in keeping with why robots had been built in the first place. But for the moment, it was clear from the near-permanent upturn of Mosscap’s metal mouth that it was having a great time, and Dex saw no cause to intervene.
They took another pinch of mint, then pulled their computer out of their pocket and continued replying to the messages they’d received the night before. There had been more that morning, and more since, apparently. Nothing to do about it but keep chipping away, Dex supposed.
Hello Ivy, they wrote. Thank you very much for the invitation to the Wildguard dispatch station in Bridgetown. We’re already planning to meet the Wildguard in Cliffside three days prior, is there any way we could combine the two?
They took a sip of water.
Hi Mosely, they wrote. Yes, the paper books we brought back from the Hart’s Brow Hermitage are in pretty bad shape, but they were the best ones we could salvage. Thank you for your note about sunlight. I’ll make sure to keep them somewhere dark until we can hand them off to you at the library.
They cracked their neck.
Hi Chuck, they wrote. We’d be happy to make a stop at the Burrows on our way to Cooper’s Junction. They paused, thumbs raised over the screen. Could they stop at the Burrows, though? That would add an extra day of travel time, and the White Peak Highway was kind of a pain in the ass, and—
Dex rubbed their eyes. Planning tea routes, they were used to, but this was already about ten times as complicated. It was fine, they told themself. They’d get this all sorted, the messages would quiet down, and everything from then on out wouldn’t be much different than their usual travels. Just with more banners and flower garlands, they supposed.
They thanked the cook properly for their meal, then took the powered elevator down to the understory, heading for the main reason they’d come to Stump in the first place: the bathhouse.
Calling the establishment a bathhouse was a bit of a misnomer, for while you did enter through a very nice building with sparkling showers and a cozy sauna, the real attraction was the natural hot spring outside. Dex cleaned themself first, standing with profound gratitude under a broad showerhead. The steam carried the scent of the bundled herbs hanging nearby deep into their lungs, and the heavy pressure hammered their weary muscles into a more malleable state. They padded outside naked and barefoot once they were done, meandering toward the spring. The forest air was cool against their wet skin as they followed the fern-lined wooden path, every bit as cleansing as the mint had been after their rich meal. But the refreshing chill was short-lived. They slunk into the milky blue of the spring, moaning without words as the rocky pool invited them in. They became as liquid as the water holding them, edgeless and pliant within the geothermal heat rising up from the moon’s molten heart.