Not only did the weather present a problem to returning to the temple of purity, the logistics also were problematic. Merumeru’s portal pipe was just a few miles from the temple. But the terrain was ice and the carriage couldn’t fit all the maids. If the trailer that they used to unch the boat was used then they could fit everyone. But it wasn’t designed for transporting people.

  Alex eyed the jeep. “That won’t work either.”

  “What won’t work?” Fufi followed Alex’s gaze.

  “Taking the jeep through the portal.” Alex squinted at the vehicle. “It has got tires instead of wheels, so it would do better on the ice and was actually designed by someone who knows a thing about towing capacity.”

  “Can you modify the carriage card to transport everyone?” The fmingo stated the obvious.

  “It can be done, but I’m not an engineer.” The magical girl pulled out the card and looked at it. “While it isn’t a long trip, just a few miles, what are we supposed to do if something goes wrong? The whole trek will be off road. The roads are not great in town, but they are mostly ft and not too steep. I’m worried that we might start to slip and tumble down the side of a mountain. Or it could just break through the snow and get stuck. The trailer hitch could break.”

  Fufi blinked at Alex.

  “Speaking of breaking, the brakes might not be up to stopping while towing.” Alex kept listing concerns.

  “It is a pity that you can’t just fly there.” Fufi gnced at the misty sky.

  “What did you say?” Alex looked up, considering the possibility.

  “We could fly down there.” Fufi pointed a wing down. “It is a big drop though so I wouldn’t do it without wings. A cmor of harpies could do it easily though. It would just be gliding down and not getting blown off course.”

  Alex went hmm, considering this.

  “Balloons might be an option.” Alex considered. “But the ones we’ve made so far just go up and the wind blows them wherever. We could put propellers on them but it isn’t really something I have experience with. I wish we had some designs for airships or blimps that we could reference.”

  “You got the balloon to float the air boat though.” Fufi gave some encouragement.

  “That is more of a prototype.” Alex crossed her arms. “Yeah it works, but usually something brand new needs to go through a few revs before it is reliable enough. Like you know the model T?”

  Fufi shook her head. “What is a model T?”

  “It is an old car… err.. A horseless carriage?” Alex tried to expin, stumbling over the words. “Well, the one that became the runaway success was the result of trying models A to S and when they got to T they decided it was good enough to mass produce.”

  “Hmm.” Fufi hummed in her high pitched voice. “It would be more impressive to show up in a fancy vehicle than on foot or in a carriage.”

  “Yeah, but the weather was so bad, it was incredibly windy when I st checked a few days ago and had no visibility. Imagine if we get blown off course or worse blown into the side of a mountain?” Alex let out a sigh.

  “It is true.” Fufi nodded. “The winds around here can be crazy. It even blows the isnd around.”

  Alex blinked. “The isnd moves?”

  Fufi chuckled. “Yeah, it goes up and down a little and the winds blow it this way and that a little bit.”

  “How much is a little bit?” Alex sounded worried. “Enough that if we didn’t have the portal pipe then it would be impossible to find it? Are we even still near the temple?”

  “We are not far from where we were a week ago.” Fufi shook her beaked head. “We usually drift about somewhere under a mile each day. It is not always the same direction, so we just meander in not-quite-round circles.”

  “Are we ever right above the temple?” Alex considered the parachute option. “We could make some parachutes and just base jump. Actually, forget that. It is a really bad idea. There wouldn’t be any way for a return trip. If there was a blizzard we’d be stuck at the temple.”

  “I’m guessing it isn’t an option to stick around the copied clergy more than needed?” Fufi made a joke, but it wasn’t very funny.

  “I suppose of all the options the ground one is the least risky.” Alex grumbled. “We can make a little trailer home style thing and secure it to the trailer. The trailer could be modified a bit too to add sleds and put something that could be used like breaks. It’ll probably need to get some help from the bcksmiths. Also, we’ll have to do some insution. Wrapping everything in pelts sorta worked, but it would be nice to do something a little better.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Fufi looked around the messy yard.

  “I don’t know.” Alex surveyed the area as well. “I have no idea how to make fibergss, but I’ve seen some houses that were insuted with mud…. That is worse than what we did. And doing stone also sounds like a terrible idea. We could use a shipping container, but I don’t think it would work unless we could drive that semi truck.” Alex pointed to the semi truck with the tanker trailer on it. “Not that I have any experience operating that thing. Plus I don’t think it is meant for operating on top of gciers. So, I suppose that leaves wood as the main option.”

  “If it can’t be helped then it can’t be helped.” Fufi fluttered her wings. “One of these days the right friends will show up that can make a truly remarkable carriage but those people are getting harder and harder to find.”

  “Maybe we can get some help from the other races?” Alex thought that some of the talk about trading with non-humans in the capitol might be a way to get some help. “What about Ariel’s people?”

  “Sea elves are incredibly reclusive.” Fufi expined. “It is a wonder that Ariel is dealing with humans at all. If Luna hadn’t directed her to you I don’t think she’d have shown herself at all.”

  “They were saying elves left this nd.” Alex considered. “I wonder where they all went and why the sea elves stayed behind.”

  “They started leaving the pnet after the accords with Cosmos.” Fufi pointed her beak up towards the sky. “They helped Cosmos’s team fight the camity when she wasn’t so high leveled. But after that, their seers prophesied that something terrible would happen, and they couldn’t stop it. So they built ships to sail into the astral sea. As for the sea elves, they had been here a lot longer than the nd elves. They hid away like the other races waiting for the demon invasion to burn itself out.”

  “That is so weird.” Alex furrowed her brow. “It affects them too. You’d think they would want to help.”

  “Hopefully it is not much of a surprise that the non-humans see this as a human problem.” Fufi said sadly. “The fact that if they don’t harbor any humans then the demons have to leave them alone because of their contract also gets people to act like Sakura did.”

  They chatted a bit more and came up with pns to build a travel trailer that would work in the arctic climate. Over the course of a few days, a wooden box came together that was big enough to fit all the maids. It wasn’t too fancy. It had a pantry, a stove and a storage area for charcoal. Apparently, the kids really liked pying with the dolls and the conveyor belts that made charcoal and brass gears.

  It isn’t child bor if they are pying right?

  Also, Alex not having to run what was essentially a rube goldberg machine freed her up to work on other things.

  The maids' bunks were small, like in a submarine, but they made their beds and cooked tea on the charcoal stove to practice.

  Also, oddly, the smiths had been keeping busy. For some odd reason, scrap metal kept showing up on the shores. No one compined when the things to advance their css came almost to their doorstep. They had even created a second airboat. But it was nowhere as cute as the one Alex made. Plus it couldn’t fly.

  Also, a certain candle maker kept asking Alex to decorate candles whenever she was in town. Experimenting with hot air balloons became a source of entertainment for some people.

  There were less tribesmen around each time. Alex hoped that they were not turned into shrubs for being bad, but didn’t want to poke that hornet’s nest.

  Aqua and Ariel didn’t want to go, they said that the ice biome was incredibly dry for obvious reasons and it wasn’t ideal for them to be there.

  Oddly enough, Seraphina and Cassius wanted to go. But Merumeru shot that down, saying something to the extent of “Ru ru me!” while making an X motion with her arms. Alex thought that it would be nice to have someone with a high charisma around to deal with the odd inhabitants of the temple, but didn’t want to second guess Merumeru in front of everyone.

  There were sleds added to the trailer, and the travel trailer part was roped down and tied securely. Some long spikes at the back were spring loaded and could be deployed like an anchor they needed to stop. Alex changed out the wheels and did the rest to equip the carriage for cold weather travel.

  After double checking everything they got changed into the appropriate outfits to use the portal pipes and the three friends plus a dozen maids hopped into the songily-pced portal, to Bob and Martha’s farm, then to the pipe near the temple of Catalina.

  The cold bit instantly. Luckily, it wasn’t storming but it was still a shock. Alex deployed the card and everyone hopped in. The maid started a charcoal fire in the travel trailer while Alex, Merumeru and Fufi wound up the carriage, started a fire in the stove.

  The going was slow, and Alex had to check a compass a few times when they got off track. And they kept getting off track. They slipped and slid around some steep areas. With the added weight, going up steep inclines wasn’t an option. It was only a few miles, but everything looked white and empty. Fufi did a few flybys and they found the temple before dark. Two very familiar people looked down on them from the ramparts of the gate.

  “Someone other than harpies?” Ekta eyed the carriage with suspicion. “You are not ice demons in there are you?”

  “How may the goddesses’s servants be of service? Do you seek to undergo the ceremony of purification and return to being completely human? Almost all of the visitors we get are people who have been afflicted by bird flu and are looking to return to a pure form.” A young priestess besides the male one stated verbatim what Alex had heard the first time, creepy.

  Alex stepped out. “Not bird flu. But my companions have been afflicted by cursed maid outfits. They have forgotten who they were and look exactly alike. Is there any way to help them without the normal ceremony of purification?”

  The two clergy members looked at each other in confusion, not giving an answer.

  This looked like it was going to be tough.