"...I dunno. But if it was the poison would still be in the keg." He wobbles his filter sphere a bit. "I have water and nowhere to put it. I don't think it would be a good idea to poke a finger in, or your head in to drink, 'cause blood is mostly water."

"And you can't get it to release some of the water into your hands?"

"I KNEW I was forgetting something when I was designing it! I'm so stupid! Maybe a little bit of white can fix it..."

"Oh dear. I wish I had my water bottle on me but I don't."

"I want to fix it, it only hurt a little bit last time I got magic, like being pinched and not like being whipped. Maybe if I can fix it with... A tenth of a stone, it's worth chancing it? I'd be adding a little part that can do something other than the rest of it, which is a white thing... White does making other magic more complicated, too..."

Nod nod. "And if we don't have anything other than our hands to drink out of make sure you don't need your hands to operate it."

He takes up a white gem... Thinks for a minute... It dims a small but noticeable amount. He makes a face.

"It hurt like a pinch again... It's going away, though..."

And then he cups his hands under the sphere, and a thin stream of water slips out.

"It works, though!"

"Oh good. I'm not terribly thirsty at the moment, help yourself."

He drinks. And then he goes over to give the donkey some water, bit by bit.

Pelape rearranges some files on her everything so she can keep the stuff she might want and cannot simply redownload in a minute.

So they're both ignoring the prospect of actually leaving for now? Good, good.

She's kind of expecting to sleep in this cave and move on in the morning when the predator's likely to have moved on!

They can do that, then. Modulo some using filter sphere tricks, dismissing it entirely and re-creating it, to deal with bathroom issues in the far back corner. (There's hard soap and other basic cleaning supplies in the wagon.)

It's not a natural process but it's a magical process and that's about as good.

The donkey seems reasonably okay after plenty of water, rest, and a little bit of stored hay from the wagon.

The kid knows exactly how to do the harness and yoke. Getting the wagon out of the little cave is a bit of a tight fit, and there's some loose rock just outside, but once they're past that it's largely dry scrubland. Pelape's sound-sense does not notify her of any stalking animals for the first while.

...The unimaginative name 'Grand Canyon' may be somewhat appropriate, actually, from the view they have down an inconvenient side-canyon forcing them to detour north. It's pretty impressive.

Wow, that's a big fucking canyon. She's new enough to being able to balance that she doesn't get tooooo close but she looks from a safe distance.

They can eat lunch here. The most obviously well-preserved food is sealed, fresh looking tin cans (canned beef, canned bread, canned oysters, canned beans, canned cherries). The flour, various jars of preserves and pickles, and glass bottles of olive oil all look decent enough, though. The kid builds a little fire and makes a batch of flatbread. He is very serious and diligent about it even if the pan is a bit too big for him and firewood is kind of heavy.

She can help with the firewood hauling but doesn't know anything about cooking on an open flame. "If we open a can we can decant water in it to drink after it's empty."

"Canned food is meant to be eaten. Just as long as we don't waste any."

"Cherries are the most appealing but if you'd rather something else I'm not picky."

"Canned bread is pretty bad. Cherries are fine."

"And you've made some non-canned bread." She opens a can of cherries.

Overly sweetened canned cherries in thick syrup on flatbread it is for lunch, then. And then back to walking alongside the donkey and the cart.

Walking this effortlessly is interesting for the first few hours, at least! She's gonna get so brown in all this sun.

A rock falls over in the distance, making a bright attention-getting flare in Pelape's echolocation.