"I'm leaving," Bianca said shortly, passing Isabela in the hall.

Her bag was filled with books, supplies, necessities, and her notebook. She had, as a last minute thought, brought a conch necklace that allowed the wearer to hold their breath for a little bit longer, maybe up to ten minutes.

"What?" Isabela exclaimed, turning around and running to catch up to Bianca with a worried expression, "Why?"

"I have answers I need to find."

"But what about school?" Isabela said.

Bianca glanced at Isabela. "With the way things are happening, there might not be a school to return to. I'm going out and doing what I want."

"Have it your way then," Isabela sighed, "but promise you'll stay in touch?"

"Only if I think I might get kidnapped, then I'll tell you where I am," Bianca said, and pushed open the door to the outside. 

Isabela waved at Bianca halfheartedly, and Bianca stepped out into the chilly air.

I have to make it over to the Grasplands, so I'll go through Fallen Heights, and follow the coast until Sprocketville. I'll cross Barrier River, and then I'll be at the Grasplands.

Bianca had figured it all out in her head. She would find Catastrophe's army, and ask to join as a runaway from New Windswood–it honestly wasn't that much of a lie. From there on, hopefully she'd be able to find out if those flowers really were Brazen Goo, figure out what was happening with the artifacts, and gain access to an untapped spring of information.

Hopefully. Another possibility was that she got caught. If she got caught, Bianca would just run like the wind and head for Cypher Labs.

After hitching a ride on a wagon heading out of New Windswood, Bianca dismounted at Fallen Heights, and started making her way down the precariously winding mountain paths. Rocks skittered around her feet, rolling down the plateau as she carefully half-walked-half-slid down the stone surface.

It was getting to be dusk before Bianca found herself at the base of the mountain, a landscape of sandy rocks stretching out before her.

Driffer outpost should be about an hour away, Bianca thought, looking up from her map. She wouldn't be able to make it before the sun set, but it wasn't too bad. With renewed determination, Bianca set off toward Driffer outpost.

---

feel free to join in :p 

Driffer Outpost was a bustling, colorful marketplace. Bianca stood among the many brightly colored market stalls, breathing in the scent of spices and the faint dusty smell of sand. Merchants called to one another from across the streets, horses and dogs and cats ran rampant, weaving through the crowd, and the hot morning sun beat down on everything.

Bianca had made it to Driffer Outpost in time, and gotten a room in exchange for washing some dishes. It was morning now, and Bianca was setting off again for Hidden Paradise Valley.

Following the coast, tall cliffs bordering a sea as blue as can be slowly turned into sandy beaches, with foaming white waves lapping against the sand cheerfully. Hidden Paradise Valley was a quaint, sprawling town, with clay tiled roofs and neat cobbled paths. The lovely weather was slightly dampened with the morose mood that was present throughout the streets. The war had etched its effects into the town in the form of closed shutters, empty shops, and crates of military supplies.

After spending the night in an abandoned apartment (Bianca hadn't wanted to pay for an inn room), Bianca continued on her way towards Sprocketville.

Sprocketville was set in between wide open grassy hills, covered in orchards and grapevines. The war had clearly left its mark here as well, with ravaged orchards and unharvested grapes. Sprocketville was a resistance-occupied town, unlike Hidden Paradise Valley (which was relatively neutral), and seeing as Bianca was traveling to join Catastrophe's army, she would prefer to avoid them.

Skirting around the edges of Sprocketville didn't take too much time, and before long, Bianca was standing at the edge of the rushing Barrier River.

It took the majority of the afternoon to find a ford where she could cross, and Bianca ended up going almost all the way to New Cogville to cross in the shallows.

Finally, as the sun was setting and dusky pinks and blues stretched across the sky, Bianca stood up on a hill, surveying the wide-open plains of the Grasplands.

Time to find the army, Bianca thought resolutely.

---

geography is difficult 

Bianca glanced around to see if anyone was following her, and then set off for the fields where Catastrophe was harvesting flowers. An innkeeper had pointed her towards the fields, and Bianca had grown increasingly paranoid as she continued on her way to the fields.

Currently, Catastrophe's army had occupation of the Grasplands, so there should've been nothing to fear, but Bianca had heard whispers, rumors carried on the wind that the Resistance was hiding in the Grasplands as well. Bianca really didn't want to get attacked on her way to join the army, but seeing as she was joining, well, the army, it would probably happen either way.

Shielding her eyes from the bright midday sunlight, Bianca squinted out across the fields. A slight dip in the valley caught her eye, and Bianca could've sworn she saw a faint cloud of dust rising up from there.

Bianca picked up the pace, jogging around the corner of the hill, and stopped in her tracks. She stood in front of a basin filled with white flowers, surrounding a small pond. The eerie thing about it was that those white flowers looked identical to the one in Bianca's sketch, every single last one of them. 

But where was the cloud of dust coming from? Bianca thought, turning around in circles.

She got her answer pretty quickly.

With a rumbling of tires and a crunching of gravel and dirt, Bianca barely had time to dive out of the way of an enormous ATV.

Almost scraping her shins getting up from the dirt, Bianca turned around to look at the ATV, which conveniently to the plot, was turning around to look at her.

"What're you doing?" a woman called out in a gruff voice, sticking her head out sideways to get a good look at Bianca.

"I was wondering if you were with Catastrophe's army?" Bianca called back.

The rumbling of the ATV stopped as two people hopped out of it, one man and one woman. Bianca caught sight of red insignias, flashing brightly in the sunlight.

So they are soldiers.

"What's it to you?" the man called out, walking towards Bianca, his tone much more amiable than the woman's.

"I was," Bianca's voice cracked, "wondering if I could join."

The two shared glances, and then the man asked Bianca, "How old are you?"

"16, but I'm almost 17!" Bianca said, standing up taller.

"Not old enough," the woman snapped, crossing her arms and turning back around.

"Wait, hold on Jen, we can figure something out," the man said, and looked back at Bianca, "Are you sure you want to join?"

"Absolutely. I want to serve Catastrophe to the best of my ability!" Bianca said, lying through her teeth. She thought she was laying it on pretty thick, but the two soldiers seemed to believe it.

"Well, you think you're fast enough to run as, say, a messenger?" the man suggested.

Bianca was fast, just not really fast. Above average was more like it, but she could figure out shortcuts pretty quickly.

"Yep!" Bianca said, giving her best imitation of a grin. It was convincing enough to make the man call out to the woman again.

"Give her a chance," he was saying, "the colonel might like a messenger, we haven't got enough."

The woman glared at Bianca. After a little bit, she spoke. "If you can beat us to the camp, you're good enough. You get a twenty minute head start. The camp's over that way. Three miles."

Bianca quickly did the calculation. ATVs could go about ten times faster than her. Even if she got two miles of a head start, an ATV could easily catch up to her.

Bianca looked up. A rough, weather-beaten dirt trail wound and twisted around the hills. It would be much too difficult to make it running on that trail so ... Bianca looked over the landscape. As the crow flew, it might cut the distance in half.

"Alright, deal."

The woman looked at Bianca. "Go then," she snapped.

Bianca took off, cutting straight across the grass.

---

did this really happen. did i really write bianca into a cross-country race. well, i guess i did. 

Colonel Romano was a sleepy black-haired man, who didn't care about anything, or so it seemed. He barely blinked an eye when Bianca was brought in as a messenger, and waved her away quickly.

Bianca had barely a day of rest, spending the night in a small tent with two other girls maybe two or three years older than her. As soon as breakfast was over, and the camp was called to order, the Colonel gave her a letter to deliver. Actually, he gave her a whole bag full of letters to deliver.

Most of the letters seemed to be from soldiers to their families and friends, and these weren't as important, so Bianca could deliver them on the way back. Her most important assignment was a letter from the Colonel to General Sanders, over in Jokull. 

"If anything happens to this letter, you will suffer brutal evisceration and beheading," Colonel Romano had said.

Bianca wasn't sure how she could be eviscerated and beheaded at the same time, but she'd rather not find out. 

After stuffing a thick jacket into her bag (Jokull was definitely going to be cold) and lacing up her boots (made for running and snow at the same time), Bianca was off, headed towards Jokull. She would make it there after two days, maybe one if she was able to hitch a ride on a wagon.

She would go through the green hills, stop right before the mountain steppes turned into icy mountains, and continue the next day.

The green hills had mild weather, pleasant and easy to run in. Bianca stopped at a small farm, abandoned. The war had left its marks here too. After spending the night in the barn (Bianca didn't feel right going to the empty house) with a couple of inquisitive sheep, Bianca got up early to head to Jokull.

It was a long, arduous trek up the slippery slopes of the mountains. Icy gravel crunched underfoot, and the snow was incessant and blinding. Thankfully her bag was waterproof, so Bianca didn't need to worry about the letters.

Finally, about midday, Bianca nearly stumbled into a smooth stone wall.

Looking up, Bianca saw towering stone turrets, thin windows, and imposing walls. She had arrived at Jokull. 

---

i think Jokull's a mix between a fortress/military camp/training ground/lab, so, i'm writing according to that assumption. 

Once Bianca showed the guards at the front of Jokull her messenger bag embroidered with the song of war bird emblem, they let her through without question. Bianca had been told by Colonel Romano to deliver the letter directly to General Sanders, so now she was wandering through the cold hallways of Jokull, asking people where Sanders was.

"Hello sir, do you know where General Sanders is?" Bianca asked, stepping up to a soldier coming through a four-way hallway intersection. 

"Either in a meeting, or at the courtyard," the soldier said.

Catching her questioning glance, he added, "The meeting rooms are in the west wing and you'll have to wait for him to leave. Nobody's allowed in the courtyard other than the scientists and generals."

Bianca nodded, and headed on her way to the west wing.

What's in the courtyard?

Yet another mystery to uncover.

Bianca would ask a soldier near the courtyard if General Sanders was in there, and maybe even catch a glimpse of what was going on in there. If Sanders was in a meeting, Bianca would have to wait for quite some time.

"Yea, General Sander's is in the courtyard, what about it?" the soldier replied when Bianca asked.

"I have a letter for him," Bianca said.

"You'll have to wait."

A heavy set of metal doors led to the courtyard, and Bianca said down on a bench beside them. There were four soldiers guarding the doors, and a couple more (which Bianca assumed were waiting for the general too) sitting on a bench opposite her.

Bianca couldn't help but overhear their conversation. 

"I heard he's looking for the crown now," one said. 

"Figures," another said, "What about the sword, is it still charging?"

Another soldier cackled loudly. "Is it still charging?! Of course it's still charging! You don't get 100 souls every day."

"Whatever," a soldier said.

So he has the sword? And he has to charge it? With 100 souls?

Where was the sword? How did he find it? Why did he need to charge it? How–

Bianca's thoughts were cut off by a whirring sound. The metal doors slid open. Bianca caught a glimpse of snow, cracked stone, and a flurry of papers drifting in the wind before the doors slammed shut, three people walking out of it.

The first was a dark-haired woman with sharp features and a permanent scowl. The second was, Bianca assumed, General Sanders, a middle-aged man with a half-smile on his face and dark eyes. The third was younger than all the rest. His eyes were colder than steel, greyer than the sky. His hair was a platinum blonde, and he walked with an umistakeable confidence.

Bianca sucked in a breath.

She had come face to face with Catastrophe.

---

i have literally no idea what Sanders looks like so I'm just guessing XD