Signore Cestié is appropriately amazed and horrified and then amazed for your adventures; worried for your injuries, but given that it's not much more than bruising, not so worried in the end. He listens particularly to your arena encounter as you work on the small repairs and maintenance required for the machine.

"Well, if you were going to get into a fight - I'm glad you found the best possible fight in town. Haha! Prize and all. Too bad we can't stay in town for weeks to see the final. That would be more conflicting for poor Bella, though."

Bella shakes her head and offers a soft little laugh. She looks up briefly from the glass bottles of liquors she bought at the market in Remas, for the trip - heady grappa brandies, one bottle for when you cross the mountains, one for when you arrive in Parravon; one for when you arrive in Nuln. She swaddles them in cloth so they won't clink and chip on the journey.

"Hah - maybe a little. But I never have been to Luccini city, Signore Cestié. And always lived so close to Verezzo's border - I think I'm a full convert now, so Luigiano's Lancers still have my cheers."

Cestié's day of light work has not been without its own surprises. He introduces you to the discovery he made, when removing a stressed strut in the light frame of the machine - a little birds nest, tucked away behind the canvas. A plump little blackbird with a yellow beak, the kind that chirped at you with their curious, bell-clear tones in the forest, sits in the cluster of fine twigs and grasses, chirping once in recognition when Cestié pulls back the canvas to to show you.

"They must have started nesting before we left from Bella Collina - she must have some eggs under there, or she'd have abandoned it for sure. The male has followed us across the country, though I'm confounded as to how; he comes by to chirp at us and bring her the moths and bugs he catches. I thought to move the nest out and leave it here, but I'd have to break it to get it away from the struts there; and it feels cruel seeming they've endured this far."

The plump little mother songbird gazes up at you, and chirps its consonance with the idea. Strictly speaking, these are more occupants than the machine is designed to carry - but your keen instincts for the basic capacities of the machine suggest that you can probably get away with it.

* * * * *

Trantio

A few more days of easy skyborn travel punctuated by idyllic picnics on tall hills and the occasional stop-over at ammenable farmer's homes carries you north beyond the borders of Remas. Cestié insists that with the spyglass, you can see Pavona in the far east, even though you are not going that way; but either the old man's eyes are better than yours, or he is still so giddy with the success of the machine that he is convincing himself of even more perfectly clear and idyllic views from the sky that are possible. Or else he's playing with you. But Pavona passes by in the far east as you fly over the Trantine hills; rippling mounds of earth whose slopes are populated by olive trees and and whose flats are topped with neat orchards of citrus and fruits more exotic still. Cestié plan is to touch down outside of Trantio and find a place to hold and inspect the machine overnight, just as with Remas; but it's in these skies that the machine's first test of rigor is met.

Harsh winds blow from the west, meaning the machine creaks quietly as it is forced to 'tack' slightly into the wind to prevent being blown too far off course. Then the rain begins; light and passable at first, but then increasingly troublesome. The tightly organized farmland loses its grip on the hills as you are pushed further east, and now there are fewer, scattered farmsteads and structures visible below through the haze of downpour, hard to see in the premature dark afternoon of gravid clouds above.

"We've no choice! We have to put her down, Taalia - she can take the wind, but if we keep getting shoved east, we might end up pushed all the way to the river Bellagio, or the Tetroverde wood - either would be a disaster! Take the yoke, while I look for a place!"

The place you settle for is an unloved, but not unremarkable villa perched on a hill; with a nice flat landing and takeoff zone within the confines of a partly collapsed ring wall, surrounded by the disordered remnant mess of what might once have been a very nice set of orchards. The landing is acceptibly bumpy - good thing you replaced those parts, in Remas - but you are forced to spend a few minutes strugging in the rain with Cestié and Bella to detach the wings from the aircraft so it can be wheeled under the looming, creepervine-overgrown balcony above the main entrance without bashing the wings on the columns supporting it. The rain has stripped the remnant warmth right out of the air, and being now somewhat soggy doesn't help much either.

Bella pulls her cloak around her shoulders, glancing up at the big redwood doors, still partially ajar. "Such a nice home, to abandon - some young noble's place, perhaps. Why leave it? What I would give for such a place!"

Cestié darts about making redundant checks on the machine, after its trial; but is not so distracted he cannot answer. "Eh... Well, Trantio's often at war with someone - but this isn't exactly a strategic point for the Pavonans to stick a flag in. Lots of the rural merchant class moved west toward the city, these last few decades. Wild orcs raiding from the mountains, when the dwarf holds are frozen over and can't keep them thinned out, see..? But one thing orcs don't do is take up long term residence."

Bella checks the birds (they're fine - the mother and father birds tweeting irritably about the weather, the eggs presumably almost ready to hatch any day), but then glances to the large country villa, and back to you. It would certainly be warmer inside - safer, dryer. But as an unknown quantity, as a location of mystery and a certain amount of eeriness, she looks to you to instigate some kind of exploration effort.