Martyr could immediately tell this was a map of Borealis. He obviously had only been to Borealis a handful of times, much less outside of the light capital Phobos, but he had seen this type of map everywhere.
Not to mention Australis and Borealis had the same type of layout as each other. Each one had the big city in the middle circling around the pillar and two crescent shaped areas representing the two other elemental areas. The earth region is called Vanahiem and the forest region is called Alfhiem.
These elemental regions surround the outskirts of the city and the badlands in one giant circle. The circle continues to expand as the elemental regions become more and more dense and dangerous. The human population becomes more scarce and the mythological creatures become more and more common.
These were the wild areas of each region and generally start at the edge of the capital and go on until the mountains of Astreum that stop the wildlife from reaching the dropoff of each island.
Travel any further and one will end up into the vacuum of space.
Vulcan pointed at a part of the map just outside of Phobos. "We are here."
He then moved his finger down the map, following an extremely long but thin road and stopped just before he reached a border of the forest and rock elemental areas.
Generally the forest and rock areas surround the entire light capital of Phobos, each one taking up half of the thick circle. But right where the two meet there is a small gap, enough for the small highway to squeeze through. It looked exactly the same on the opposite side of the map.
"This is where our base is. This is where you will stay for your breaks in between your visits to the capitals." Vulcan looked around at his team making sure they all understood.
"That's pretty far away, how long is it gonna take to get there?" Vanagloria said, studying the map.
It really was far away. There were 4 main roads that came out of Phobos, it looked like they split up the city into 4 even pizza slices. The road Martyr's group came out of eventually led to the split of the two elemental areas, but you could fit two other Phobos's in the space between the massive light capital and their destination.
"It's going to take at least two days to make it there by car." Vulcan sounded very sure of himself.
"Bro…" Spectre fell back into his seat.
"Oh my god." Martyr groaned.
"So like 2 straight days of driving?" Blair sounded extra tired.
"Yes if we drive 15 hours a day with breaks for bathroom and food at about 40 mph that's about how long it will take." Vulcan dropped those statistics like it was a completely normal sentence.
Samsara slammed her mug down on the table. "15 hours? What the fuck? That's insane!"
"Yeah, that still gives us 9 hours not driving. Eight hours to sleep, an hour to get ready in the morning, it's way better than what the previous teams had to do. You guys will only have to do that a few times, back in my day we had to travel from island to island every other capital trail."
"You've gotta be kidding me…" Martyr was running his hands through his hair trying to process what Vulcan was saying.
"It'll be over before you know it." Vulcan still was acting like this was normal. "Alright then, let's head out."
"W-wait now?" Vanagloria said, like she was only now starting to process what was happening. "Can't we wait just a little bit."
"Yes I mean we've taken care of the situation with the pub owner. I would love to hang around here for a little longer but we should go now if we wanna make it in just 2 days." Vulcan started rolling up his map.
"Everyone else has decided they want to stay here for a few more hours and make it in three days but if you guys want more time to train then we should go now. It's Thursday right now so if you make it there on Saturday that'll give you a day to train and prepare, you guys are leaving for the first trail on Sunday afternoon.
"Aight, I guess I'm fine with that, I'm bringing some of this food though." Martyr stood up with his half eaten plate of eggs, bacon and cheese slices.
"Ok hold on, first a few questions." Vulcan motioned for Martyr to sit back down. He didn't quite understand the motion at first so he ended up standing with his plate for longer than he needed too.
"Do we all have packed food?" Vulcan said, sliding the rolled up map into his front Jean pocket.
"Uh…" Martyr looked around at everybody, so did everyone else resulting in them turning their heads to each other without saying anything.
He knew he had some food but he didn't know if it was enough to last for the trip, or even if it was still good to eat.
"I'll take that as a no." Vulcan said. "That's fine we'll just kick our miles per hour to 45 or 50 and stop for food twice during a trip. So second question, raise your hand if you can drive?"
"Blair put your hand down." Martyr said. Him, Spectre, Samsara and Blair all put up their hands. There was no way he was letting Blair drive anywhere.
"Sorry." Blair said giggling at her little joke.
"Wait, why not?" Samsara looked confused.
"It's a long story." Blair told her, trying to hold back a big smile.
"So there's four of us." Vulcan said counting the hands again. "Ok good, that works out. 3 people in each car, 2 drivers that can switch out and one that can't drive. My minivan and Martyr's truck should be able to fit that many people, right?"
"Yes of course. My Subaru still has back seats, they are just a little tighter than usual." Martyr described. "By the way. Why did you get a minivan? Out of all the cars you could get with your type of money, why a minivan?"
"I have kids."
"Oh, yeah that makes sense."
"Hold up, so I'm not gonna be able to ride with Blair?" Vanagloria interrupted as she realized they were the only two that couldn't drive.
"I guess you could." Vulcan said, trying to think of the possibilities.
"I mean that might be a tight fit in my truck but I guess we could do that if all the bags are in the trunk, or if some of us sit in the trunk." Martyr put his plate back onto the table and sat back down.
"I suppose you're only gonna be driving your truck Martyr?" Vulcan asked.
"I don't have to, but I'd rather. I've never really driven any other car other than that." Martyr was thinking hard.
"How are we gonna manage two cars though. I'm trying to think about like how many times we're gonna have to stop to like switch drivers, and it's gonna take even longer if we get a whole new group of people in each car with every stop, or even just thinking about how many times we're gonna have to stop, are we gonna be stopping like every few hours or what if the drivers get tired at different times and both cars have to stop even though one could keep going? How will the front car know if the back one stops, by honking? What if the front car doesn't hear the back car and keeps on going and we don't find out until an hour later? Will we have to be alert for honks at all times? It's supposed to be a straightforward drive on this straight road but if we gotta worry about…"
"Ok calm down. Stop for a second." Vulcan interrupted his essay on double car road trips. "So you said you could have people sitting in the trunk of the car?"
"I don't know how safe it would be at 50 miles per hour but yes we tried that out yesterday and it kinda worked out. I slam the top or yell into the back window of the truck if we need to stop and it probably has enough space for 2 more people to ride in the truck at a time." Martyr explained to Vulcan who stopped to think.
"You know it would be nice if I made it to my capital early." Vulcan muttered to himself reaching into his front pocket.
Vulcan pulled out his map and rolled back onto the table and started writing on it. "Martyr, if I give you directions to the spot do you think you would be able to make it without me?"
"Maybe…" A smile crept onto his face.
Vanagloria started to realize what was happening.
"Wait, don't tell me you two are considering we only take one car."