She woke some time later leaning against the cliff wall, her eyes gritty with sleep. When had she fallen asleep? After...?

"You back with us?" Eim was sitting next to her, one hand on his knee and the other covering one side of his face. He had a cut on his lip too, she noticed as she peered at him through bleary eyes.

There was no sign of Yaris or Ollie, but she could sense Shrike sitting in the centre of her Heart, back straight and eyes closed, with his hands on his knees and her rabbit-skin blanket draped over his shoulders.

"Did the others… Leave?" she asked. It looked like the fight had come to blows. Was that why she'd fallen aslee- oh, no it must have been when she sent Shrike to her heart, it must've been too much.

He shook his head, looked at her, blinked as he removed his hand, and then shook his head again. "They- Oh, no, they're scouting out the path up ahead, making sure it hasn't collapsed at any point. That's part of our quest. We're alright."

She relaxed a little, pushing herself into a sitting position and leaning against the wall, as Eim twisted the thin gold ring on his finger. He seemed like he was about to say something, but instead, he shook his head and looked out over the ravine, his back firm against the wall.

"Shrike's fine," she said to fill the silence, checking in on her Heart again. Still the same in there.

Resper was growing on her a little. It didn't require eye contact, any gestures, or your lips to be exactly the right level of dryness to make certain sounds. It was very freeing. Given Tongue was the language of her soul, but Resper was interesting.

It was still a stupid human thing though, she wasn't going to forgive it that easily.

When she and Feather-paw were very small, they had tried to invent their own, silent language. It hadn't been very involved, consisting of only basic hand signs and body movements, but his paws had been a major drawback, and he could never get enough fine control in his wings to make it work.

Would the job the Stone had offered her have let her translate that, a language known only to two children? Mountain above, she should have gone for it.

She looked down at her hands, as Eim sighed. Were there a people out there who spoke without any sound? That would have worked well for the Mud People…

Eim glanced at her through one swollen eye, before looking away again. "I'm glad. We assumed as much, but there wasn't much we could do either way."

He paused, "sorry I shouted at you."

She shrugged, unsure how to respond, and the two of them lapsed back into silence.

"Has anyone been down there?" she asked finally, leaning forward a little to indicate the gorge.

Eim kept his back where it was. "A few. People the guild calls in from bigger cities, when we need help. Supposedly the bottom is Blue ranked, way out of our league. If we jumped, we'd be torn apart before we even hit the ground."

"Blue?"

He huffed, a tiny out-puff of breath, "I guess nobody explained the colours to you. Our rank is Lily, that's the very lowest rank. Even though we have Shrike with us who's level three. The first three ranks are Lily, White and Opal."

"Like the crystal we found."

He nodded, "like the crystal. After that the ranks are Buttercup, Yellow and Topaz, then after that, it's Cornflower, Blue and Lapis."

She let her skill digest that for her. "Flowers, colours and types of stone?"

He still wasn't looking at her, his gaze fixed on the vista ahead of them. "That's it. No idea why it was set up that way, but it's easy enough to remember. Speculation is so that it can be communicated to those who don't speak the same language. You show them a colour or flower, object or stone, and they know roughly what level you are.

She could see the logic in that, even Feather-paw could drag some flowers out of the hedge with his teeth, or carry a stone or sash around with him.

"The ranks don't correspond to levels, but to experience. You do enough quests and prove yourself, the guild'll rank you up. They used to do it by levels, but too many people got themselves in trouble trying to fight things they didn't have the combat experience for. It's all well and good being a level ten, but if the strongest thing you've ever fought is a stubborn stain..."

He sighed, putting his arms behind his head, before realising that wasn't a comfortable position and putting them back on his knees. His lip had stopped bleeding, the cut half-closed, but his eye was starting to blacken.

"Can Shrike leave on his own?" he asked finally, "or is your room like a prison?"

She blinked, queried the meaning of prison and then shook her head.

No! It wasn't a prison, it was a safe place!

"I think if he wants to leave, he can just think about it and leave? He's not saying anything, he's just sitting in a pile of blankets with his eyes shut."

She paused, "I think he re-arranged the shelves? Some of the stuff has moved, and I can't… Huh. I can't move things while he's in there?"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Would probably be dangerous," Eim pushed to his feet, one hand on the wall, the other brushing through his hair, "dangerous and weird. But if you're up for walking, we should be able to catch the other two on their way back. It's almost an hours walk to the staircase, but we can cut that down if we jog."

She followed as he walked down the path, one of his hands on the wall.

She knew what an hour was, but using it as something more than a novelty was an interesting concept. Time had never meant much, up on the Mountain. She was feeling very introspective, with the grit still in her eyes and her stomach clenching in hunger.

I want to go home.

The path narrowed more as they walked, and she was glad she hadn't fallen here. Not that she would have ever known about it, you didn't survive a fall like that.

Still, the drop beside her didn't bother her overly much. She had spent her life living on a mountain, and the path was stable and perfectly level. There weren't even any little rocks underfoot to slip on, the ground unnaturally clear.

Ahead of her though, Eim's body language was stiff, sweat darkening the back of his shirt.

Eventually he paused.

"I don't suppose," he laughed, an edge to his voice, not looking back, "that you could put me in your prison-room too?"

It's not a prison!

"I could but I might fall" she thought about it, half-watching a flock of birds twist and turn far below, "and it's not sized for humans. Shrike is taking up all the floor. You'd have to sit super close together."

She couldn't see his face, but she saw him nod, and after a deep breath they kept on moving.

****

The path widened out not long later, as they met Ollie and Yaris returning the other way.

"Glad you're both up," Yaris was all business as she turned around carefully. "We found the stairs and they look intact, but we all have to see them for the quest to count. They might skill-check us. After the loss of Team Six…"

Eim nodded, grimacing. "Shrike's okay, so the kid- Jump says."

She glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes flicking to his black eye, before shaking her head and turning back. "We have to trust it either way, we can't bring him out here. There's a cave up next to the staircase where it'll be safer."

Ollie was the one to glance back this time, grinning and giving Jump-touch two thumbs up, whatever that gesture meant. Something positive she hoped.

She shrugged half-heartedly, and tried to smile back in a way she hoped looked friendly. Below them, the birds were still looping, swirling and swooping in huge pulsating ribbons, and she couldn't believe how far away they were. All this was under the ground, this whole time?

Why had she never been told?

What else had Rat-tail never mentioned to her? Sweep-claw said he'd lived with humans. Not only met, but lived with.

She could feel another headache coming on. In her Heart, Shrike had his eyes open now, staring at the bookshelf, holding the blanket around himself. Was it cold in there? Could she change the temperature?

I can, she sensed with surprise, but not while he's in there.

It was a strange feeling. Like wanting to sneeze but not quite being able to get there, a sort of itch in her mind.

There was a cry from below, as something swept through the cloud of birds, scattering the flock like ripples in a pond, the ribbons breaking and reforming around the predator.

A flash of light off something metallic, another cry.

It might've been a word in Shriek, but she was too far away to tell, the sound bouncing off the walls and echoing into obscurity, and she hadn't learnt the shouts.

Yaris had stopped walking now, eyes following her gaze.

"Whatever it is, it shouldn't bother us up here, we're too near the surface. The magic isn't dense enough."

"Magic?"

What does magic have to do with anything?

"Dungeon monsters need magic to survive, and the closer to the surface you are, the thinner it is. Only small things can survive up here. If the dungeon was allowed to do what it wanted, and us adventurers didn't cull it, then eventually more spurs would erupt from the surface, levels of magic in the world would climb, and more powerful monsters would be free to ravage the land. It's… Happened before."

"A city was lost just a few years ago," Eim wasn't watching the birds, instead he was standing with his back against the wall, almost three body lengths back from the edge, looking up towards the roof. "They didn't offer enough incentives for people to go down below. We're still dealing with the refugees, which only makes our own loss more imminent."

Yaris stepped back with a sigh, and Jump-touch followed her. "The guild is hoping Shrike will get some sort of magic-detection skill, or that his use of magic will increase the drain on an area. That's why they're still willing to let him go out, even though he can barely walk."

In her Heart, Shrike opened one eye, raised a middle finger to the air, and then went back to his previous pose. Strange. Is he trying to signal me?

Ollie was watching the flock of birds as they walked. "It's cool, how they weave like that. Around and around."

Yaris gave them a look. "If you kill enough monsters, sometimes the magic will coalesce into an item. The further away from town you go, the better the loot-" there was that word again "-gets. Magic items, cards, even healing items sometimes, but they're rarely very strong. If you can carry him all the time, then we can go further out in the future, maybe we'll find a magic-keyed detection skill."

"That's the dream, isn't it." Ollie sounded wistful, their footsteps light against the stone. "I'll probably be working in the shop long before then though, and you'll have replaced me with somebody with actual combat skills."

"You have a writing class too?"

No wait, they mentioned something earlier? Seam...

"Tailoring, but I'm still only an apprentice. I can make garments and repair them, and I'm extra good with my hands. That's it so far though, one point of Dex, one skill to make me learn faster, and one to help with mending. You should give me that shirt of yours some time, it's coming apart at the seams already."

She picked at her new shirt. She'd barely had it a day. "I don't have another one, though. This was all I got given."

Where did my old clothes go? They never came apart-

She was hit with a sudden lurch, where did my clothes go? She had been so out of it during the wash, and so upset by having a stranger's hands all over her that she hadn't even considered it until now.

I made that skirt myself.

Where did it go?

It was gone.

The loss hit her like a pain. It was gone, lost somewhere in the stupid, huge human city. Somebody else would be wearing it, or it would be sitting in a trash pile somewhere, forgotten.

Another lurch, and she had to steady herself against the wall for a moment.

But that was mine!

It was. And it was gone now, had been gone for two days and she hadn't even realised.

Forget about it, Jump-touch, she whispered to herself. Yaris was saying something, but she'd turned it out.

Forget about it. Don't be attached to stuff, that's where madness lies. You had the skirt for a time, Jump-touch. Let it go.

It wouldn't kill her, it was only a skirt. She still had the memories, she remembered the fight, the terrifying night when the wolf came to the village. The celebration afterwards, and the hours spent making it under a friendly kobold's tutelage. Nothing would take those experiences away from her.

She was taking a deep breath, trying to move past it, trying to overcome the sudden deep sense of loss, when the cry sounded again from behind her, and much louder this time.