The second bridge, checked in the 'evening' the previous day, had been there, but crumbling, the edges of the steps ragged, the treads scattered with chips and stones.

Ollie had run their hands over the steps, declined to go down then, and then they'd set up camp for the night in a nearby cave, glad to be away from the drop.

It was morning now, and they were travelling along the path from last night.

They'd sat as a group over breakfast, watching as Jump-touch attempted to make something edible out of the rations, and discussed where to go next.

Eim had suggested turning back, but the other four had been game to carry on, so that was what they were doing.

"Why didn't you cook the bird for breakfast?" Shrike asked as they walked. Ahead of him Ollie nodded, "I bet it's tasty, like chicken! We never got meat much back home."

"No, it needs to hang for another couple of days before it'll be edible, and another half day at least before it'll be easy to pluck."

"You can't do that that!" Yaris had turned back with wide eyes, "it'll rot!"

"You kill something and then you eat it for dinner, preferably within an hour, leaving the remains somewhere for the wild animals. This is how all the books do it," Shrike had been as horrified as the others.

"It'll be fine, I took almost all the air away," she had protested, trying to explain. Even Angel had known about this, and Jump-touch had the impression that she wasn't the most practical of humans. How did these ones not know?

"You took all the air away?" Shrike had rapped hard against the ground with his cane, stopping mid-stride, "you took the AIR away?"

"Not all of it, just enough to stop bugs!"

Yaris turned around, frowning hard, putting her whole face into it.

"But… I don't understand. If you take the air away, what's… I don't-"

"Look, I'm not explaining how air works in the middle of a dungeon, where half of those rules don't apply," Shrike waved his cane at her, tripped, and had to catch himself against the wall, wincing. "I'll never get used to this shit I swear."

Yaris had kept staring out over the ravine as they carried on walking, her mouth moving in thought.

"But what's there if you take the air away," she said finally, a hundred paces later.

"Nothing," Shrike glanced at her. "There's nothing there, then."

Eim turned, started to walk backwards, and then changed his mind on the narrow path. "But, I don't get it either. How can there be nothing? You can't just… No. Never mind, don't try explaining it to me, I don't get it either."

He waved his hands in the air, walking away from them at a slightly more hurried pace.

"It's like wind, right?" Ollie put one hand on his shoulder, pulling him back towards the group, "you can blow into a bladder to make a ball, right? If you put more air in there- if you put enough in, then it gets really hard. That's pressure, my teacher said. Then if you step on it, it all rushes out in a big wave. You're saying..." they pursed their lips, "you're saying you took all of the air out of the ball, but because it's magic the walls stay where they're meant to be?"

Jump-touch thought about that.

"Sort of? It's not gone-gone, I didn't take all of it, but there's less, so everything gets colder, and rot-bugs don't like it."

She tried to explain, "the less air, the colder it gets. Like at the top of a mountain. There's less air up there."

The word mountain sounded wrong, when spoken to mean only a big hill. It should have more meaning than that.

"How do you know this?" Yaris stared at her like she'd never seen her before. "You come from a village which doesn't have a Stone, how do you know all about air. I don't know about air, and I live in it all the time!"

She turned her wild gaze to Ollie, "and you, pressure?"

"I asked awkward questions at school," they shrugged, "sometimes I even got answers."

Jump-touch looked between them both, "the Stone doesn't make you smart, it only gives you magic, right?"

"It can-" Shrike started, but Ollie kicked him in his good leg and he shut up.

"Sure," Yaris still looked like a lost cub, "but the magic lets you do things you wouldn't normally be able to do. Like I get to keep three weapons in my own sort of [Pocket Zone] and Shrike gets to fire cold at things. Eim can heal injuries at a touch."

"and I can mend shirts," Ollie sighed.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I'm sure you'll get something better once you level," Shrike made a face Jump-touch didn't know how to read.

Ollie looked at him for a long moment, then their shoulders dropped a little, "yeah, you never know."

"What if the cold you shoot is actually just… Gaps in the air." Eim grinned at Shrike, narrowly dodging a cane swipe.

"That's stupid." Shrike shook his head, readjusting his balance. They'd all stopped walking now, and Jump-touch was starting to realise that maybe 'on a narrow path, bordering the edge of a cliff' wasn't exactly the best place to have this sort of conversation.

"It doesn't work like that," Shrike continued, unaware of her thoughts and getting too into it to even be afraid of the drop, "the air would rush into the space, it'd blow up before it got anywhere near the monster."

"Yeah, but it's magic."

Shrike stared at him, and Eim's grin grew slowly wider.

Yaris shook her head, realised they'd stopped, and decided to take matters into her own hands by walking away. "I'm just a [Common] [Warrior], I'm not up to all this thinking. You lot have fun."

"Hey, you can't leave me with them," Eim dodged another swipe, laughing and running after her. He really has forgotten the edge is there. Wow. "Let me come with you, we can not get it together. Leave these smartypants to it."

Yaris shook her head, but didn't complain as he fell in beside her, and the conversation at the back lapsed.

"We have a choice," Shrike said a few spans later, as the path reached its narrowest point and he was doing his best to keep his gaze focused forward, "we can either go down the stairs into level two, try our luck at the first challenge and get ourselves killed, or we can go home, regroup, resupply, and get our shit together."

"You think it'd be that bad?" Ollie asked, and Shrike nodded like he meant it.

"I don't know if I'm supposed to tell this, but my previous team had a look at it. Something's moved in there, some monster. It's not the Flight Fight anymore, but the guild won't say what it is, and they weren't inclined to tell me. The guild still wants everyone to go in as blind as possible."

"That's how people die," Yaris didn't look back.

"We could get a look though?" said Ollie.

Shrike shrugged, "from what I understand, my team barely made it back, and they were almost level five at the time. They lost one kid to it. Whatever it is that's moved in there, it follows you."

"Up the stairs?"

"If you can get back to the stairs, then you're fine, but-" he gestured to his knee, "-at best it'd be a ten minute run, being chased the whole time."

Ollie blew out between their teeth.

"Yeah that sounds kinda shitty. Maybe we shouldn't do that."

They thought for a moment, looking over at Shrike, "are you sure you don't want to sit in the [Pocket Zone]?"

"With no air, freezing temperatures and a huge dead bird?" he gave them a thin smile, then focused his gaze forward again, "I think I'm good, thanks."

"I'd put the air back!" Jump-touch protested. "And I can't mess with it when you're in there anyway. I think it has special rules for if I'm carrying People."

He was still keeping his face fixed firmly forward, not looking at the drop. "I'm good. And that makes sense, it's not a [Prison Zone] or similar. A few people have gotten those over the years, normally as a very late upgrade, in their twenties or higher. You can take people into those without their consent, and they get sort of frozen. They can't leave until you let them leave."

She shuddered, that sounded… Bad, but she didn't really get it.

"Why would you do that?"

"To stop people who're doing bad things?" Ollie nodded, and she tried to think it through.

Like… Like the wolf that had rampaged through the town. If you had a [Prison Zone] you could pick it up and take it away, leave it somewhere else, with food and water but no people to kill. That made sense.

"Oh. That actually sounds good. I'm a little sad my skill can't do that."

It would be nice, to be able to relocate monsters like that.

Shrike gave her a look, and then shook his head but said nothing.

"What?"

"Nothing, you're a weird kid, is all."

"I'm not a kid." Jump-touch stood her ground, "I'm fourteen, I'm an adult! That's why I had to leave and come here and get a job. Because that's what adults do."

Ollie tried to pat her on the head, and she dodged out of the way, viscerally aware of the edge.

"So no going down to not Flight Fight," Ollie said, shrugging and putting their hands behind their head, glancing down at the drop in a way which made Shrike flinch. "So, once we've checked out the next staircase, then home it is."

From ahead Yaris, still facing away, gave a gesture of an upraised thumb, similar to what Ollie had done the day before.

"That's settled then," they sighed loudly, hands still behind their head. "Shame, I reckon we'd knock it out, whatever it is."

"I can assure you," Shrike had a wry look to him, buried somewhere under a mountain of tension, "that we would not. Unless you're hiding some sort of combat skill in that tailoring class of yours."

They took their head, "maybe I can mend it to death."

Shrike laughed, somewhat brittle.

I wonder if looking at the view for a while would make it better or worse, she wondered, staring down and being careful not to let her feet guide her over the edge.

The thread of blue at the bottom glimmered in the light, and a movement caught her eye. Something wading through the water, too far away to make out the shape or even the colour of.

She found she'd stopped to watch, one hand on the wall. How big must it be, to be visible from up here? At this distance, even the trees, which must be huge, looked like nothing more than a thin green haze.

Yaris glanced back as the pattern of their footsteps changed, and then stopped too, squinting down.

"What'd you see, kid?"

It must be bigger than Sweep-claw, her thoughts hitched; it must be so much bigger.

Yaris squinted over the edge, as Shrike pressed himself against the wall with closed eyes, one hand clutching at Eim's shirt, who didn't look much happier.

Ollie came to stand beside her.

"My class improved my eyesight, maybe- Oh!" they exclaimed suddenly, then went silent. Yaris gave them a glance.

"Will one of you two idiots tell me what you've seen? I'm not getting it."

"There, in the river," they pointed, "that big green rock blocking the flow."

"The mossy one?" She squinted, "what about it."

"That's not a rock, it's walking."

Yaris spent a long time staring down at the rock-monster. From up here it looked like nothing more than a large stone in a stream, being carried down the mountain by winter snowmelt.

Something in her brain hitched.

"It doesn't look like it has wings?" Jump-touch said, trying to ignore the strange feeling, and Yaris pulled her gaze away.

"I don't care. We're going. Shrike, I'll carry you, we don't have time to mess about with air or temperatures or whatever the fuck, we go, now, until we're away from the edge.

She stepped back and grabbed him, and there was a moment of terrifying flailing before he stopped moving and let himself be carried, sweating.

"Ollie, look after the kid, Eim, with me, we're moving out."

What had been a light and frequently interrupted walk was now a rapid, breath-stealing jog.

"But-" she panted, "it couldn't fly, right? It was just doing its own thing?"

Nobody answered, and Jump-touch focused on keeping the pace.