Skull casing has been dented, time to repair 8 hours and 17 minutes.

Seras groaned at the message.

Athena looked down on her with a concerned frown, “I told you the tower wasn’t stable enough to jump on.”

“Shove off, I almost had it.”

“You were missing it by a good arm’s span.”

Seras scowled, “Well I don’t see any other options.”

“What if I stood on your shoulders?”

Seras gave her a blank stare, “you want to stand on my shoulders, while we’re balancing on four chairs, a table, and several unevenly stacked rocks. You realize that while my head dents, yours would crack like an egg.”

Athena looked at the dent in Seras’ head uneasily. “Okay. Well I don’t think we’re going to get up there then.”

“Probably. And now that I think of it. I doubt the Omeda were using that tunnel to get out either.” Seras muttered bitterly.

“I guess we should just be happy that it let out the rainbow smoke. I’d hate to be trapped in a small space with that stuff.”

“Nah, it would vanish eventually. I tried trapping some in a bottle once for a stink bomb, no go. The jar I filled refused to hold the smoke for long.”

“Why you make a stink bomb?”

“For monsters with good noses. I punched something called a Kabra in the nose, it stunned it long enough for me to snap its neck. Thought I could make a cheap bomb that did the same.” Seras said as she began collecting the dining furniture.”

“Do you ever think your too casual about mentioning brutal violence.” She asked as Seras got the table back into her pocket space.

“No, but I’m pretty numb to it. Back on my world we had these annoying things called ‘ads’, they using any evocative or shocking imagery they can to draw your attention. There was one for an energy drink called Surge where they actually drew up a guy’s head for the commercial. Apparently, the actor didn’t read the fine print of his contract.”

She made a face, “why?”

“To grab your attention.” Seras said blandly, as if the point should be obvious.

“I meant, why was blowing up someone’s head the only idea they had to grab your attention?”

“Like I said, we’re numb to it. I’ve lived my whole life ignoring a thousand ads cramming up my HUD, but the Surge ad is one I remember.”

She just sighed, “From what I hear I don’t think I would like your world.” Athena gave Seras a look of deep pity.

Seras glanced away, “yeah well, if it ever gets to be too much just let me know. Most of the crew have banned me from talking about Ruin already.”

Athena scowled, “why would they do that?”

“Too many nightmares.” Seras was now examining the other two exits to the caven, one was a cracked slit in the wall, while the other was suppiciouly round. She started pouring salt in a ritual formation on a hunch.

“Well, still. That doesn’t sound right. As terrible as it is, it’s still your world. I don’t like a lot about this world, but I’d still feel awful if I wound up on another where I wasn’t allowed to mention monsters or magic.” She paused and thought for a moment, “did you… leave any one behind?” she asked cautiously, as if it might trigger Seras.

Seras just snorted derisively, “not really. My crew and I were all on the same station that blew up, if they’re not here they’re either in the astral, in another world, or dead. ,y money’s on dead.”

“What about family.”

“My parents died after trying to hold up a quick-mart… the equivalent to a small merchants stall. Shop keeper was former West-blood, a gang, he had a gun and got his shots off quicker than a couple of teen punk wannabes.”

“That’s a bit harsh.” Athena chastised.

Seras rolled her eyes, “maybe, but I wasn’t old enough to remember to them or care. They’d already ditched me onto their old gang, the Black Bullets. They raised me. And then they lost half their members in a police purge, and the rest in the following turf wars.”

Athena stared at Seras with eyes that made her feel uncomfortable. “What about friends, you had to have had one?”

Now Seras was starting to feel uncomfortable, the rest she had made peace with. But Cash was still an open wound, “yeah, one. He was gonna shoot this kid, and but I shot first.”

“The kid!” she exclaimed.

Seras turned to Athena, “no.” she said flatly.

She was confused for only one second, and then, and then her eyes became too painful for Seras to meet. She turned back to her ritual circle and changed the subject, “what about you, how long has it been?”

“Been since what?” she asked.

“Since you ran away.”

Athena froze solid, and then forced her body language to become causal, too casual. “I don’t know what you mean.”

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“You’re a bad liar.”

She deflated, “how’d you know?”

Seras snorted derisively, “wasn’t hard, not if you know the signs. Seen people like you more than enough to recognize a rich kid running away from their family, either they’re too strict, or boring, or trying to marry their kid off for a business deal. I’ve seen all kinds. You tick some of the boxes, but not enough for me to pinpoint why. I’m guessing that’s more a cultural difference at play. And finally, until about a minute ago I only had well founded suspicions-”

“-but I gave myself away when I flinched.” She finished. Athena sighed, “my aunt even told me to look out for that trick. It was quite literally in the textbook, you blatantly changed the subject, and while I was still suspicious about what you were hiding you caught me off guard with the question. How long have you been waiting to confirm your theory?”

“It was after the Brush Pythons, you struck me as a bit timid, but after being nearly suffocated by a monster you seemed fine. That struck me as odd, and then I started going over the facts. And things started lining up.”

“I’m curious, what facts?”

“You’re not a local, just about everyone in the five deserts have heard of outworlders. Given that these deserts cover a good third of the continent, and that places adjacent to the Desert would likely also know about Outworlders that means your far from home. We’ve been together for a while, but you haven’t once mentioned finding or talking to your family. My guess is that you hopped on a sky ship and chose somewhere remote to get away.”

“I could just be someone out seeing the world-”

“Nah, your too, softs not the right word but its close enough. You don’t have the feel of an independent adult, you remind me more of Dallas, always taking cues from us older members of the caravan. You’ve let me lead the entire time while we were down here.”

“You seemed like you knew what you were doing.”

“And I do, but I never got any pushback from you, even when I shoved a gun in your hands.” Seras looked up at Athena as she finished pouring her ritual salt, “so wanna talk about it?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again only to have no words to say.

Seras turned back to her ritual and let her mana suffuse the circle, it began to glow and then so did the tunnel around it. “Its fine if you don’t. I’ve been pretty open, but that’s because nothing I say can come back to bit me here, if I were back home you’d get less out of me since my secrets still matter there. If you feel like your reasons for running away are private I wont pry.”

She smiled, “thank you, its, its nothing serious. But I do want to get away from my family and the lives they lead, I just want to find a quiet life in a low magic zone where no one already knows me.”

Seras glanced back, “that’s fine, by the way, I think this tunnel is earth shaped through magic. Might be what the Omeda were using instead of a shaft in the roof.”

Athena stared at the suspiciously round and smooth tunnel “Huh, it seems pretty obvious in hindsight. Probably could have skipped two hours of stacking and jumping.”

“Not the first time I’ve gotten stuck on a seemingly achievable path instead of the blatantly obvious.” Seras admitted.

“You too?”

“Yep, most be another one of those little universal experiences, next to crime, war, and taxes. Can’t get away from it no matter where you go.” Seras said as she gestured towards the tunnel, “shall we?”

“Might as well, nothing else for us here.” Athena said as she walked forward.

The distraction of the plant monster in the cave behind them the two continued to delve deeper into the labyrinth.”

~~~*~~~

“What about cats?” Athena asked.

“Uh we used too, and there might actually be some up on some corpo-station, they’ve built giant biospheres to conserve what’s left of our natural resources. But interestingly our cats have different coat patterns than yours. We’ve got cat with black fur and little white paws, and some have black and white stripes, my favorite are the ones with white fur and little black polka dots. Also, ours only come in black and white.”

“That’s sounds adorable actually. Okay, you said no Heidels, uh what about…”

They had gotten bored after walking for hours in a dark tunnel, and had begun to play comparing the less notable differences between their worlds. Their little game came to an end when the smooth earth shaped features of the tunnel suddenly changed.

The mossy carpet and vine covered walls suddenly vanished, the rough red stone became gray and glittered. Seras put her hand to one wall and pulled out a small sampled of the material, the rock had little geometrical faces of gray crystals all stacked on each other.

Poor grade levitational galena. A lead-based mineral with anti-gravitational properties prized in the construction of sky ships

“What the hell?” Seras murmured.

“What it is?”

“An anti-gravity lead.”

“Anti-gravity?”

“It makes things float.” Seras corrected.

Athena looked around in astonishment, she picked up a rock and tossed it down the tunnel. The rock didn’t float, but it went further than it should have.

“Is it a kind of sky stone? The stuff floating islands are made out of.” Athena wondered.

Seras looked at her, “you have floating islands on this world, like big floating rocks still in the atmosphere?”

“Yes, there are a few places around the world with them. But Rimaros is the most famous of them.”

“The storm kingdom? I read that they get intense weather patterns, nothing about floating islands, how big?”

“Huge. Like, a whole island. Several in fact. One of the wonders of the world.”

“Huh, I’ll need to check that out.” Seras muttered, and after a moment she had another thought, “is the Labyrinth one of those wonders?”

She grimaced, “not really. I’ve read about it, but in the same way you read about mountains. They’re there, they’re big, they effect the lives of people in the region, but not much else. They’re no Zartos.”

“Zartos?”

“Underground city, an absolutely stunning place.”

“The five deserts also have underground cities.” Seras pointed out.

“Right, but in magically poor regions. The five deserts are some of the poorest magical regions in the world, with only a few cities of note, hundreds of kilometers apart from each other. You can’t even safely fly to any of these cities, not without silver rank guards. And the poor magic means that skimmers require specific essence powers to work and burn through hundreds of spirit coins. A slowly morphing cave system is cool on paper, but in reality that just means you get lost, or a tunnel you’ve been exploring disappears.” She explained all matter of factly.

Seras knew the five deserts were not a rich or populated place, but she felt that Athena’s description was uncharitable. There was endless beauty in the desolate deserts, and each city Seras visited had unique character and quirks. The almost sundial like effect of the Arrie on Cupric, the grand bizarre of the Wolfram valley, and the lush abundant greenery of Karstess. She felt offended on behalf of the place she had spent the last few months traveling.

“Right, well, this tunnel’s weird though, right?” Seras gestured outwards.

Athena glanced down the tunnel and nodded. “I don’t know much about the varieties of floatstone, but I do know that its rare and valuable. Even if its poor like this stuff it could be used in warehouses for moving cargo.”

“You guys use magic floating metal for pallet jacks and forklifts?” Seras asked askance.

“Why not, it’s simple enough to build, and it beats paying essence users to move heavy cargo. Why, what would you use?”

“Hydraulics.” Seras said flatly.

“Never heard of it.”

Seras sighed, “alright, the Omeda probably still used this tunnel despite the strange stone.”

“Right, they must have known where this tunnel system was and used stone shaping to link it with the plant tunnels. I guess the ore probably isn’t good for the plants to grow in compared to the other tunnel.”

Her words reminded Seras that they were standing in a tunnel made of lead, a magical lead, but still lead. She wasn’t sure how heavy metals would effect iron rankers like them, but she was certain they weren’t beyond lead poisoning yet. Fortunately the one thing a Ruinite was always prepared for was toxic air. Seras summoned a sleek black metal face mask from her pocket space, a purchase she had made after Florin as soon as she saw them.

Iron rank filtration mask. Uses spirit coins and air quintessence to purify air in hazardous environments.

It was a useful magic tool for miners and alchemists. The moment Seras saw them for sale she had bought a dozen of them for cheap. The part about these masks was that they used magic to affix itself to the lower face instead of straps that wrapped around the head.

“Put this on, I don’t trust the lead.” Seras said to Athena.

She took it the mask, pressed it to her face, and the magic held it in place.

For a second Seras flashed back to her time on Ruin. Masks like these were everywhere, even with replacement lungs people had taken to wearing face masks and had even made it into just another accessory to complete a look. Personally Seras thought they were neat, the last person she had been involved with had worn one all the time when in public.

Seras realized she was staring and turned away as she stuck her own mask on. “All good?” she asked, her voice coming out crystal clear thanks to the magic engraved in the metal.

“Yeah, I’ve never worn something like this before, it’s a bit weird.” Athena said as she felt around her face.

“They’re pretty common on Ruin. We made them just another fashion accessory. I knew one that could open up like an actual jaw, but inside it had these wicked sharp teeth. It was pretty Nova.”

Athena shook her head, “The more you tell me the less I can imagine how people on your world look, its nothing like any culture I’ve ever heard of.”

Seras shrugged, “how do you think I feel.” She gestured to her clothes, “these aren’t exactly what I’m used to wearing. But people give me odd looks if I don’t wear this silly hat, like I’m walking around topless.”

Athena looked at the hat, “it does suit you.” She said cautiously.

“Thank you.”

Athena nodded, “much nicer than the clothes wear I come from, that’s all bright colors and garish hues. Baggy instead of clean cut like yours, though it doesn’t seem all that comfortable in the dersert.”

“Eh, you’d be surprised. Apparently this style was originally a Smoulder fashion, from their kingdom up north. They’re less concerned about the desert heat, and others have copied it but with magic to keep things cool.”

Athena walked down the tunnel, “there aren’t many Smoulders where I’m from, I know your knew to this world, but what are they like?”

Seras followed after, “Well I only know the two really well, Dustin and his nephew Dallas. But they’ve told a lot about their homeland. Its apparently located in the cualdera of a super volcano, like 80 kilometers across. Its got all these cool lakes and geysers…”

They walked and talked for hours longer, meandering from subject to subject. It was pleasant to chat with Athena and it made the time pass quickly, but all the while Seras kept an eye on their location and distance traveled. They were still heading east, and they had gone far.