Riders on the Storm

"Head for that farmhouse," she said. "I'll explain when we're in the rain."

They were getting a lot closer to farm with its own storm system, now. It was becoming clearer that the thunderstorm was exactly big enough to cover all of this one farm, and only rain on that farm - it has all these right angles and straight lines to its shape. Occasionally those dark clouds above the farm would rumble and flash, but lightning never struck below.

"We should find a couple instruments over there," she said. "But we should probably stop jumping when we get there. Cause of the lightning."

"Right?"

They were on a different person's land now, with different crops. The rain started exactly where the plot of land did, which was eerie, especially considering how heavy it was. Madeline felt like she should have brought better shoe for this.

Madeline was keeping her eyes peeled, just like Shir. Her visions had been a bit inaccurate before, so it was worth keeping an eye out for them wandering around.

"Anyway. What I did was, I have a new trick I picked up in hell. I can shut down one or two powers a person has. So I shut down the special sense that big lumpy boy was using to track us."

"I think they should be in the farmhouse."

As they got closer, they would notice something interesting. A damaged fence, being repaired by floating tools. When they got close enough, a hammer would stop what it was doing and start hurriedly floating and shaking its way towards the farmhouse.

"That's pretty cool," Madeline would say.

Soon, the front door of the farmhouse would fly open, and a floating sword would begin to approach them. They would hear a voice, a man's voice with a British accent, calling out to them seemingly from where the sword was.

"Hello! Can I help you two?"

The sword twirled and flew towards them, stopping a few feet in front of them with its hilt pointed to the sky.

"You must be referring to the newcomers," the voice said. The sword would wiggle with each word, as though to make it clear that, yes, it was alive, and it was talking to them. "I thought it was strange that nobody called ahead about them. And that they got so lost on the way over here."

Madeline, meanwhile, was getting pretty sick of being out in the rain. Her raincoat was only doing so much to manage the situation, and she was sweating from the walk through the muddy farm, which made the inside of the raincoat stick to her sweaty skin in that awful way only a raincoat could. She wanted to collect her reward and go home already.

"They weren't heading here," Madeline said. "They were supposed to be in an enchanted marching band, and they scattered because the enchantment got messed up. Or something like that? It was in the news. Their owner wants them back."

"Ah, so they have owners, do they?" The sword's tone became a bit more aggressive.

"Uh... Yeah. They're -"

"And you're here to bring the escaped slaves back where they belong!" The sword turned rapidly in the air, its point aimed directly at Madeline's throat. Each wiggle of speech became a threatening jab in her general direction.

"W-what!? I don't -" Madeline stepped back, almost losing her balance by slipping in the mud.