Someone intelligent somewhere probably once said something along the lines of "Trips and troubles go hand in hand." at some point in time. I mean, I have no proof of this, but it just seems like something someone ought to have said at this point, right? 

It's hard to remember anything specific, but it seems that trips always encounter some sort of problem or hiccup eventually. I'm pretty sure that it's just in the nature of man to forget something important or make some major blunder that ultimately leads one off the intended path. These can be annoying, sure, that's certainly true, but aren't those little adventures, the ones we didn't expect, ultimately the most valuable?

Ah, who am I kidding. They're beyond irritating. Luckily, teleportation should negate situations like that. How wonderful.

Anyways, it didn't take to long for S to finish his snack, and we were back on the road rather quickly. 

"Right, we were going this way, right?" S said, ending his sentence with the same word he used to start it. Neat, I guess.

"Yeah, think so." I said, opening the holes again, same as last time. Over there, over here, go, repeat.

We hopped through the holes, and continued going forward at a very reasonable rate. 

Hup, hup, hup,

We've passed about a fair amount of people at this point, but I don't think anybody's noticed us long enough to care about what we're doing.

Hup, hup, hup,

Oh, hey, I see something over yonder. A landmark, perhaps? Cool. Guess we'll see what it is in a moment. 

Hup, hup, hup,

Wait a minute... Are those supposed to be there? The mountains are supposed to be far to the north, rig- oh, I see.

Hup, hup, hup

"Yo, S." I say.

"Yeah, Beyes?" S asks, probably already knowing what I'm about to ask, but allowing my little comedy act anyways. 

"Why are we in the mountains?"

"Y'know, I don't like to focus on the past."

"This is the present, you oaf." I said, trying to imitate a 'TV comedian' voice. Though, I guess to S that's just an odd voice. 

We laughed at our stupid comedy skit for a moment. Had we been under some sort of time constraint, I might have told him off a bit more seriously, but we're really in no hurry. If anything, this will just make future trips to the mountains easier, should we decide to return.

"Right, looks like I read the map wrong. Sorry" 

"Nah, don't worry about it." I said as I brought us back somewhere close to where we started. "Alright, let me look at the map."

He handed me the map and I looked it over. Ah, I see what his mistake was. See, we, for the most part, need to head east. East is to the right on most maps, so we went right. Problem is, we were facing west, so we ended up going north. A fairly reasonable blunder, I think.

"Alright, east is..." I looked up at the sky to make sure I had the directions correct. "thataway." I pointed east. Because we need to go east. East. 

"Right, let's get going, then." S said.

Once more, we walked off for a while, and once we got to an area we felt was mostly out of sight, we began hopping through the holes, same as before. 

Hup, hup, hup,

This could take a while. I guess I should think of something productive during the downtime. 

Hup, hup, hup,

Y'know, I'm curious about my dark noodle technique. It's a little hard to get used to, but it's quite potent, and seems like it could be pretty powerful. I'm not really sure how or why it works, but it seems that when something impacts the noodles, like when I use them to block something, they send me flying at incredibly high speeds in the same direction as the incoming force. For example, when I got hit by that moving tree thing, I got flung backwards, and when I used them to break my fall, I flew upwards. The flight that occurs strangely seems to allow me to defy gravity, so long as I maintain top speed.

Hup, hup, hup,

but there seem to be some other conditions, as well. Like, when I slammed the noodles into a tree when I first used them, they didn't really do much of anything, let alone fling me. And when I slam them into the ground in an attempt to slow down, the impact from that doesn't fling me, either. 

Hup, hup, hup,

this could mean that there's either some sort of force threshold that's required before the fling can occur, or that the fling doesn't occur when it's the noodles being the cause of impact. Or maybe it could mean both? Or something else entirely? There are other mysteries, too. Like, what if I used them to block something like a bite from, say, a wolf? The force would be coming from both the jaw, and... the top part of the mouth, I dunno what that's called. Anyways, there'd be upward and downward force. Would they cancel each other out, meaning I wouldn't get flung at all, or would I instead fly backwards because the wolf would be the source of the impact? 

Hup, hup, hup,

if the latter is the case, then it'd imply that there's some sort of logic beyond the initial force thingy, which would create even more questions. Like, is the logic like some sort of AI, or do I, the caster, subconsciously dictate the logic? 

Hup, hup, hup,

Well... I don't know. And I really don't know how to find out. Guess I shoulda payed better attention in science class. Ah well, what can you do. 

Hup, hup, hup,

Not really sure how much further we have left to go. I mean, we have to go 'bout halfway across the continent, which would ordinarily take ages, but I don't really have a great frame of reference for how long this is supposed to take. I kinda want to try to figure something out about my thorny vine thingies, but I have even less information about them then I do the noodles. I mean, I know that they spiral around and grab my weapons, and then, when I swing them, they leave some sort of after image. No idea what they do beyond that. Look cool, though.

Hup, hup-

"Hold up, Beyes." S says, before we head into the next hole. 

We stop. "Wha?"

"Think we overshot it. We're near the border, I think." He pointed over at what seemed to be some large, official looking building blocking the path pretty far up ahead. Man, that place looks kinda drab. 

"I see." I pull out the map and study it for a moment. Hmm... if that's the border, then we're... Here. Basenholm is pretty close to the border, but still a decent ways west of it, and on the south end. So, we're quite close right now, just gotta go a bit south west. Nice. I check the sky and orient myself before we resume our journey. 

"Good catch. We'll move a little slower this time, we're pretty close." 

"Right. I'll make sure to keep an eye out."

"Thanks."  

Once again I begin creating the holes, and we keep moving towards our destination. Still following the road, mostly.

Hup, hup,

man, it's a good thing he noticed that. If he hadn't, it's possible I'd have just leapt right past the border, getting us way past lost. I'll have to pay better attention as well, going forward.

Hup, hup,

I think we're getting pretty close now. Shouldn't be too much longer. 

Hup, hup...

"Right." S says as we're jumping through the holes.

"What?" I ask. Did he forget what he was gonna say?

"Think we gotta turn right here." Oh, that's what he meant. I stop and look around for a moment. 

The path he's referring to is actually to our left, and is a lot smaller, less worn yet pretty poorly maintained compared to the main path. I guess we missed it earlier. Seems like it heads south. That's probably the way. Actually, I think that I might be able to see the town from here. 

"Yeah, this is it. Good catch, again. Think I can see town from here, actually." 

"Deeeee-lightful!" S said, stretching. "Right, think we should walk the rest of the way? I'm feelin a little wobbly from all that teleporting."

"Yeah, seems like a good idea." Teleporting right into town wouldn't be a great idea, would it? 

We walked for a short while, talking about this and that, and taking in the scenery. It was a pretty nice day out, after all. It wasn't long before we arrived at the bridge, the bridge to Basenholm.