Nephis answered immediately, no hesitation in her steady voice:
"What else? We sail for Verge, of course."
Then, she turned to Cassie and asked:
"What is the fastest way we can get there?"
The blind girl hesitated for a moment.
"I'll have to check."
She stood up and left, soon returning with a heavy crate. The stone slates they had recovered in the drowned temple of the Defiled sybil were stored there.
It took Cassie some time to lay the slates out on the table, reference them, and come up with an approximate route. In the end, she pointed to a particular slate. There, the shape of a graceful castle was etched.
"It seems that the fastest way to Verge is to simply sail downstream and keep going until we almost reach the dawn of time. However…"
The blind girl put two slates that did not seem to have anything in common together.
"With what we know about the shape of the Great River now, we can save a lot of time by simply crossing it, sailing past the western Edge, and braving the inner void. That way, we should be able to bypass most of the journey into the past and land near Verge directly."
A strange silence settled on the mess deck.
Nephis studied the stone slates for a while, then nodded.
"This will take us close to Fallen Grace first. Let's stop there on the way, then, before departing for the final battle."
She looked at them, her gaze lingering on Sunny for a few extra moments. Eventually, she said:
"...If there is no objections."
He might have been mistaken, but it seemed as though at least a hint of liveliness had returned to her voice. Well, the words liveliness and Nephis did not really go together, but it was a great relief to see that her humanity was slowly coming back.
She was even interested in their opinions… his opinion, in particular. At least it seemed that way.
Sunny sighed.
'What else is there to do? If we want to escape this Nightmare, Verge in the only way.'
He shrugged.
"No objections from me."
The others did not have any, either.
After a few moments of silence, Nephis nodded.
"Onward to Verge, then."