As the echos of Pratt's voice died away Rick had a brief urge to run but then turned back. This showdown had been a long time coming. He was only two steps from the doorway, so the risk wasn't great. Gambit stopped in the doorway itself and looked back.

"Hey, Pratt, how's it going?" Rick called nonchalantly.

The rest of Team Technique spread out across the dais and stopped. Pratt stood in the middle, shaking a fist at Rick. The others kept glancing back and forth. They stood ready to attack but hesitated, and Rick saw a chance for this to end without combat.

"You bastard!" Pratt screamed. "I should have ended you when we first got to this place. I knew having you along on this expedition was a disaster waiting to happen. Why, you!!"

Pratt spluttered to a halt. Then he threw his hands in the air and started mumbling. Green energy flowed up from his upstretched arms and then poured down into a pool next to him. He was summoning one of his demonic minions. One of his warlock minions.

"Hey, Pratt, you better wipe your chin. You're frothing."

Pratt gritted his teeth, but the green light flickered. He lowered his hands briefly, shook a fist at Rick, and then raised them again.

Rick grinned. Pratt was so mad he had interrupted his own channeled spell.

"Hey, Pratt, who were you planning on kicking when you invited Sam to tank for you?"

Anderson's head jerked around.

"What?" the paladin roared.

He glanced back at Rick, clearly wanting to disbelieve. Rick threw up his hands in a "beats me" gesture.

"She told me about your offer, but she didn't say who you were going to kick."

Anderson took two steps toward Pratt, brandishing his massive hammer.

"What does this mean, Pratt?"

Pratt lowered his hands, and the green glow dissipated again.

"No, it wasn't going to be you! I mean..."

"What?" shouted the rest of the group.

The whole Team Technique had turned to face their leader. Rick heard Gambit chuckling quietly behind him.

"Damn, man," Gambit said in a quiet voice. "You don't mess around."

“Hey Scott!” Rick Called. “I found out healing as hell of a lot of work. Sorry for all the times I didn’t move out of the fire fast enough.”

The Team Technique looked between Rick and Pratt, his face a mix of surprise and anger.

Rick started to turn back toward the exit but stopped. It would be pouring salt on the wound, but at this point, he didn't care. He pulled out the caravan upgrade token and held it aloft.

"You know, we humans should really stick together and exchange information! I'll let you know how this thing works."

Pratt shrieked incoherently.

He took three steps forward and raised his hands to cast something—probably hellfire—but Anderson stepped in his way.

"Now wait just a damn minute!"

That was all Rick saw. He turned and ducked into the passage just behind Gambit.

"You're crazy, man," Gambit said. "Did you throw rocks at stray dogs as a kid?"

Rick was momentarily confused. "What, just to be a jerk?"

Gambit shook his head, glanced over his shoulder at Rick. He was grinning.

"No, man. To see if their whole pack wouldn't turn and rip you apart."

Rick nodded as he ran. That made more sense. Gambit's upbringing had been very different. He had grown up in a place very different than Rick's. He would have to ask him about it sometime.

The journey back to the hangar bay was much faster than the trip up. For one, it was all downhill. But also, they had cleared most of the threats. They were able to skirt the edge of the Levis Stone atrium carefully and get out without incident. The rope they had left tied across the gap was still there, and they were easily able to go back over.

The hangar was just as they had left it. The old hermit was surprised to see them. "Oh, you're alive then! Did you bring back what I asked?"

Rick withdrew the device they had pulled off the anvil from his inventory. "Is this it?"

Her eyes lit up, and her hands stretched out greedily. "Oh, oh, oh, yes, yes!"

She took it to her workbench. With one of her upper arms, she swept the entire space clear, sending odds and ends crashing to the floor. Then she gently placed the device in the center of the open space with the work light shining down. With her lower right hand, the one made of flesh, she gently stroked the top.

"So long. It's been so long." There was a long pause while she just fondled the device and ignored the party.

Finally, Rick cleared his throat. "Is there any sort of reward?"

She looked up, surprised to see that they were still there. "Oh, what? Yes! Yes, there is!" The she jerked suddenly and said blandly, "Oh no, definitely not," in that stilted voice of being system-controlled. And then she trailed to a stop, tilting her head to the side.

"You didn’t have the quest! But, you did find that device I'm looking for." She licked her lips. "I don't suppose you finished the miner attunement quest?"

Rick shook his head. "No, we're with the farmers."

"Hmm." She said, considering.

They had given her what she wanted even without the quest. He wondered how far they could take this. So he seized onto that.

"But it might be a long time before another party comes through. If there's anything you'd really like to have done, maybe we could take care of it for you."

She tilted her head from one side to the other and seemed to consider. She opened her mouth to speak and then wrestled with herself for a moment, closing it again and giving a little twitch.

"Maaaybe," she said, the word drawn out as if it was being pulled from her.

Nia was standing a few yards away with her arms folded. "Can we get out of here?"

Gambit leaned close to Rick. "What are you doing?"

"I've got a hunch," Rick murmured back. "Give me a minute."

The Rork quest-giver fidgeted back and forth from foot to foot. She ran a brown tongue over scaly teeth. Rick could tell definitely something here—something she wanted to talk about but felt like she couldn't. He needed to push a little.

"Look," Rick said. "Maybe not a quest, but maybe there's something you want done, something no one else has been doing. Can you tell us about yourself and how you came to be here?"

She jerked and lit up, and Rick decided he had struck paydirt.

The old Rork beamed and nodded. "I've been here a long..." She straightened up and sighed. "I've been here a long time." She ran one of her lower arms over her face. "A very long time. I lost track, really. I can still remember what this city looked like when it was..." She gave a lower-arm shrug. "Not exactly new, but... before it fell."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"These things, they're flying ships, aren't they?" Rick asked.

She nodded. "Yes, they would travel to the far ends of the world and then come back." She motioned at the rails set in the floor across the open hangar bay. "And slide up into their cradles. There's three other bays like this one, you see. They held the fleets of the empire. They were the real power by which..." She hesitated. "Hydrilium ruled the world."

Her face sagged a little. It was hard to read some Rork expressions, but Rick was slowly getting the hang of it. She looked sad, maybe regretful.

"That was our undoing, really. We kept things... all the power was kept here in this city, and any who resisted were put down. Until finally, they rose up against us."

"This city flew, didn't it? In the sky?" Rick asked.

She nodded.

"How did it fall?"

She shrugged both sets of arms. "No one knew how they got in, but they sabotaged..." She hesitated again. "The levistones and other things… and the city fell." She paused, looking sad, and then stared off into space.

"The people at Angel's Landing say they're descended from the inhabitants of the city," Rick said.

She nodded slowly. "That's probably true. Many left, many died." She shook her head. "I don't really remember. It was a dark time, a terrible time. Perhaps we deserved it." She shrugged her lower shoulders. "But I don't know."

She looked up at one of the sky cruisers looming over her workspace. "I only cared about the ships, the great flying ships."

She focused her eyes on Rick, and her expression hardened. "I would give anything to see them fly again. To stand on the command deck. And soar through the air. They let me do that long ago. After the maintenance was complete, I would take them out on a check flight. But then I had to give them over to the Navy so they could go out and..." She grimaced. "Oppress the world until the world finally struck back."

"How old are you?" Daniel wondered aloud, but the Rork ignored him. Her gaze was intent on Rick.

"I would give anything for that," she breathed.

Rick nodded slowly. The Rork was trying to tell him something, something she was having a hard time communicating.

"But it would be impossible to get one of these out of here, wouldn't it?" Rick glanced at the other end of the hangar bay, where the opening was plowed into the ground and sealed up with dirt.

She gave a small shake of her head. "No, not these."

"But perhaps?" She lifted a finger and circled it around them—not around the entire hangar, but around the empty space in the cradles where she had her workshop. "Perhaps these."

Rick suppressed a smile. Now they were getting somewhere. "There were two others, right?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes, two in this hangar bay. Others from the other hangar bays, but they were far, far away." She shook her head. "I don't know where they could be."

"But these two. Do you know where these two might be?"

She gave the tiniest nod of her head. She looked around furtively as if someone might be listening. "There's a scientist. Up the canal to the north, past where it ends and in the hills. He has a camp."

She spoke quickly, as if she would soon be overheard. "Go there. He has been studying the past, and he has an idea how the ships might be found."

She shook her head. "We aren’t suppose to talk about the quests of others. Not support to talk about chains… or the start of chains. The ships aren’t what he's looking for, but it could work. Could work. Others have helped him, but they never..." She paused and licked her lips again, then spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Never helped him the right way."

She leaned back and sighed slightly, as if she had only just been able to get out what she was trying to say.

Rick considered. This wasn't much to go on. "A scientist, you say?"

She nodded.

"To the north, then?"

Another nod.

"And he gives quests?"

Another nod.

"Just one? Or several?"

Again, a nod.

"A chain, then."

She smiled, and that was all the indication he needed.

"Is it the end of the chain?"

She shook her head slightly. That seemed odd. He was expecting that to be a nod for certain.

"No, beyond the chain," Rick considered. This was something significant. Something not small.

"If it was at the end of the chain, it might have been a boss like the one we just fought. But if it wasn't..."

"Is it a dungeon, then?"

She circled her hand around them and then shrugged.

"Look, can we get out of here?" Nia called.

Daniel stood near her, but he didn't speak, just looking between Rick and the woman with his brows crinkled. Gambit had a thoughtful expression and was looking up at the nearest sky cruiser.

Daniel couldn't take it anymore. "What is that all about?"

Rick shrugged. "I'm playing a hunch. There was something more she wants to say, and I was trying to figure it out. I got the location of a quest hub."

"Yeah, but how's that supposed to help us?"

Gambit was stroking his chin. "Do you remember what Slate said about enclaves and caravans and leveling them up?"

Daniel shook his head. "I guess."

"You can make them better, add perks, like what we just did with the token."

"But what is..."

Gambit was nodding. "He said the highest-level parties had flying fortresses."

Daniel stopped with his mouth open for a second and then closed it slowly. "Then you think the quest hub and the chain of quests might lead to..." He trailed off.

Rick nodded slowly. "Maybe. Maybe not. It's just a hunch. But I think it's worth following up."

Nia broke in. "Wait, you seriously think we can get a quest chain that'll get us a flying spaceship as our base?"

Rick started to protest and then shrugged. "Yeah, that's kind of it."

Nia just shook her head. "That's not a hunch. That's just wishful thinking."

"Maybe," said Daniel.

"Maybe," Rick agreed. "But I want to get up there and see that scientist as soon as we can."

Nia jerked in surprise and unfolded her arms, catching Rick's attention. "A scientist to the north? I know that guy. His camp wasn’t that far from Theo's.” Nia was frowning. "I actually have his quest."

The Rork lit up. "You have it? Oh good, oh good! If you have it, then I can tell you all about it. The rules don't let us tell the details of someone else's quest, see?"

She shrugged. Now she was talking quickly and no longer lowering her voice. "It's simple, really. It's a time machine, and he wants you to go back in time to the city."

She beamed at all of them, and they just gaped back at her.

Except for Nia, who shrugged and folded her arms again. "A time machine?"

The Rork nodded. "To go back in time to the city."

Nia stepped forward, unfolding her arms and leaning on the work table. "Look, it's not like that. He's got a temporal resonance machine, and he wants you to search around and find random scraps from robots and bring them to attune the thing. I never did it because the robots were too difficult to fight."

The Rick was nodding. "Exactly! And that leads to?

“Well..." She trailed off. "Well, the other things."

Rick felt his face stretch with the sides of his grin. "To a quest chain that brings you to a dungeon back here."

The Rork smiled back at him and nodded. "Only in the past, right?"

Daniel was shaking his head. "What? Where did you get all that?"

But the Rork was smiling. "Exactly," she said.

Daniel continued shaking his head. "That makes no sense. How did you get that from..."

But Gambit was also nodding and interrupted him. "Look, call it a video game thing, huh? There's only so many patterns these kinds of quests take, and, well, the pieces all fit."

"You guys are crazy. This whole place is crazy. We're going to go back in time and do a dungeon here in the city. Back when it was flying, right? That's what you're saying?"

Nia was still shaking her head. "I'm telling you guys, that's not what the scientist's equipment does. He explains the whole thing. It's just a resonance device that lets you..." She trailed off. "See what happened a long time ago."

She stopped with her mouth in an O pattern.

"Exactly," Rick said. "And haven't you ever done a quest like that?"

When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and full of awe. "Yeah. Yes, I have. Oh, wow."

Daniel was looking back and forth between them again. "I still don't get it."

---

Nia guided them unerringly toward the scientist's camp, a place she had visited before. They climbed up out of the wash and made their way through a field of hoodoo rocks. Each formation towered about twice as tall as a man, with bases that resembled alien mushrooms.

The bottom of each hoodoo was a column of compacted dirt, as wide around as a large tree trunk. Atop each column sat a mushroom-shaped stone, three feet tall and six feet across.

Rick nodded. "We have these on Earth, too. They sometimes use them in movies, but they're not uncommon as a geological feature. I've seen them in Utah."

Nia raised a hand suddenly, signaling the group to stop. "Oh, there's one other thing I should mention before we get there," she said, turning to face them. "He's actually human."

---

Dr. Fatima Rahimi was excited to meet their party. She smiled broadly and eagerly shook everyone's hand.

"Oh, so good to see you, so good to see you!" she exclaimed. "I knew Earth wouldn't leave us abandoned."

"How did you get all the way out here?" Rick asked.

"Same as all the others, I guess," Dr. Rahimi replied with a shrug. "That first night was pretty terrible, and after that, I woke up out here. It's not so bad. I have my camp and my studies. Ancient Mars is fascinating."

Her voice alternated between the tone of an NPC delivering a quest and that of a normal human being.

"I still wonder how much of this is actually true and how much is just made up," she continued. "The ancient history of Mars is fascinating. The civilizations that were here four billion years ago did remarkable things." She shook her head in disbelief. "And just how we could have missed the evidence in the records with all of our space missions is really a mystery."

Nia interjected, "Dr. Rahimi is studying the ancient geology of Mars. She's probably one of the premier scientists in the world on the history of Mars—or at least," she shrugged, "as Earth knew it."

Dr. Rahimi nodded eagerly. "Exactly! I've learned so much since then about the real history that we had no idea of," she said, then she shrugged, her enthusiasm dimming slightly.

"If any of this stuff is true, that is."

Daniel had growing more and more impatient. "Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but can you tell me how your machine work?. Will it take us to the city of the past?"

Dr. Rahimi frowned and looked confused. "Of course not. It'll just allow us to learn what happened."

Rick and Daniel whirled on the others.

"See?"

Rick held up a placating hand and then addressed the scientist. "Can you explain how we will use it to learn?"

"Of course, of course," she said then went over to the side of his camp and opened a large wooden crate. Inside was a row of five helmets, each with electrical attachments. They were shiny metal and had electrical probe attachments along the sides and top.

"It's quite simple, really," she hefted one out of the crate. "This cognitive resonance device will synchronize with the temporal sensations and..."

Rick, still grinning ear to ear, interrupted her. "And it'll let us see and experience things that happened back then, as if we were one of the residents of the city."

The scientist looked surprised and then nodded. "Exactly!"

Daniel's eyes were wide, and his mouth was an O. "Holy crap, we're going back in time."