It was a long way down. The ladder's rungs were widely spaced, like they were made for limbs that were longer than those of any ordinary person. Hina measured her progress in the lines between the bare blocks of stone that lined the walls, blocks that grew larger as she descended.

A tension built in the air, like Hina was in the beginning stages of her cycling exercise. The potentia was thick all around her without her even having to think about it. And that made a kind of sense. Cycling in the room above had been intense. Did potentia always get denser the further you went underground? Or was it something about this place?

Her legs burned, and her arms ached. Sweat dripped from her brow.

Her foot reached down, but instead of another rung, she found flat stone. A circular room, dimly lit with that same sourceless light as the room above. Empty, except for a tall arch-way in the wall opposite the ladder. It wasn't even dusty.

Kai stood at the bottom, looking out the doorway. "It's foggy down here, or something. Are you okay?" He turned to look at her.

"I'm—" Hina took a deep gasping breath. "I'm fine." She took another. "Long way down."

"Do you wanna sit for a bit?"

"No." She bent with her hands on her knees and waited until her heart-rate slowed. "No, lets keep going. Let's see what else is down here."

Kai gestured for her to go ahead. Hina's right hand touched the knife on her belt, and she stepped through the arch. The corridor curved off into the distance, a grey mist obscured the far end. Hina walked, sandals slapping against the stone floors. The roof stretched far above Hina's head.

The hair on her arms stood up—the air was cool and sweet, like the breeze on a spring day.

The path curved back and forth for long enough to stretch out Hina's aching legs, and then the corridor was joined by another to the left. The second one ran back at an angle, like the two corridors were branches on a tree, and Hina was heading towards the trunk. It was narrower than the main passage, narrow enough that Hina's shoulders would have nearly touched both walls as she walked—their father's shoulders wouldn't have fit at all.

They paused at the intersection. Hina looked down the new passage, and along the way they'd been travelling. Aside from the width, there was no difference between the two—both were obscured by the fog.

"Which way, do you think?" she asked. "It's like a maze down here."

"We don't wanna go back the way we came, do we? Even if it's just a bit."

The main corridor curved back and forth again, and then there was another intersection, also branching off at an angle back in the direction they'd come from, but this time, on the right hand side. This one slanted upwards into the grey fog.

A chittering sound came from somewhere in the mist behind them. Hina turned around, but there was nothing there. "Did you hear that?"

"Not sure what that was." Kai shook his head. "A rat? Let's keep going."

The corridor branched again and again, always in the same way, with different hallways joining at angles, while the main passage continued straight ahead. All of the secondary passages were smaller than the main one, which had grown even wider as they walked.

They couldn't get lost—the main corridor was still wider than all of the others—but she repeated the list of turns they hadn't taken in her head. Left. Right. Left. Left. Right. Left.

"Oh!" Kai spun around. "Oh. I thought I..." He was talking quietly, just over a whisper.

"What?" She whispered back.

"I thought I saw..."

"What?" Hina's heart was pounding. "What did you see?"

"A figure in the mist. Out the corner of my eye..." He looked left and right. "Gone now."

They walked on. The passage was wide now, wide enough that two of Hina could lay down and stretch out without touching the walls. Footsteps echoed down the corridor behind them. And then the chittering sound again.

She turned, knife in hand. "You heard that, right?" Her pulse quickened.

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Kai nodded. He held the iron poker high with both hands.

The footsteps went silent for a moment, and then returned, faster and punctutated with the occasional chirrup.

A figure appeared in the fog—dark and person-shaped, but its face was wrong. It held something long with both hands—a staff of some kind—at waist height as it ran forward out of the mist. It chirruped and squeaked, slowing as it came nearer. Its squat body was covered in dark fur—no clothes—and its rat-like face protruded forward.

"Hello?" Hina said. Was it a person? Was this who the tower belonged to?

The figure chittered, its black eyes staring at Hina. It rotating its staff, drawing one hand back so that the end of it was pointed towards her. The end of the thing's spear, Hina realised with a start, as the metal point came closer to her face. The creature paused, and gave an inquisitive chirp.

"We're sorry to intrude, we came in trying to get away from some beasts... Uh. Other beasts?"

The thing squawked angrily and stepped towards her, making a little jab with the spear in her direction to punctuate its vocalisation.

Hina stepped back and raised her hands—the knife clutched in the fingers of her right hand. "We're very sorry."

Kai pressed his backpack against the side of the corridor as the rat-thing advanced.

The thing chittered louder and stepped towards Hina, punctuating chirps with jabs with its spear, the point aimed at Hina's chest. It didn't seem to have noticed Kai at all.

She walked backwards, maintaining her distance. "Hey! Put that away! We didn't mean to offend you. We're just trying to get out of here."

The thing gave an angry chirp and thrust out with the spear. The point flashed in the light as it rushed towards Hina's face.

She yelped and hopped back, narrowly avoiding the blade.

Kai's poker whistled through the air and the end of it struck the thing in the shoulder with a crunch. The rat-thing shrieked and turned to face Kai, spear thrusting out.

Hina ran forward, knife held low, her mind clear now. She thrust the knife into the thing's side, and it shrieked, jerking back and pulling the knife from her hand. Kai's poker struck it on the head and the thing fell to the ground, its long tail twitching.

The rat-thing chittered faintly and then let out a gasping moan and went still.

One arm leaned against the wall for balance, Hina reached down to retrieve her knife from the thing's thick grey fur. She wiped it off and put it back into her belt.

"I—" Kai's face was red and his breath came hard and fast. He slid down to sit his back against the wall of the corridor, within reach of the thing on the ground. The poker clattered to the floor.

"Are you okay?" Something hard rose in Hina's throat. "Are you injured?"

"No. No, I'm—I'm fine." His chest rose and fell and his head drooped. "It didn't get me."

"Hey, hey." Hina crouched down next to him, squeezed a shoulder. "It's okay. You're okay."

"What—what was that thing? Why was it trying to kill us?"

Hina shook her head. "I don't know, Kai."

"I never—"

"We tried talking to it, and it tried to kill us. We did everything we could."

"Yeah." Kai sniffed. "Yeah, I guess."

"Come on, we can't stay here. We need to keep moving. There might be more of them." She shivered. "Or other, worse things."

"Yeah, okay." He grabbed the thing's spear and pushed himself up onto his feet. Hina bent to pick up the poker.

Quiet footsteps echoed from up the corridor to the right—the way back to the ladder. "Come on, let's keep moving," Hina said.

The next intersection had passages branching off in both directions. There was nothing visible in either one, just more bare stone walls that curved away into the mist.

"Do you think anybody else is down here?" Hina said. "Any people, I mean."

"What'd they be doing? It's just corridors. Endless."

"Maybe there are things down the passages we aren't going down. Maybe we're on the main road, and everything that matters is on the side roads."

"Should we try one? Just to see?"

"We could mark the floor so we can find our way back." She scraped the tip of the iron poker against the stone of the floor. It left behind a white mark. "It'll do."

As she stepped into the corridor to the left, Hina saw it out of the corner of her eye. A figure. Beyond the edge of the mist, and tall—nearly tall enough to touch the ceiling high above them. It was all black against the grey fog, with something red where its face should be.

When she turned her head to look at it directly, it was gone.

"I saw it," Hina said. "Just for a moment."

Kai sighed. "I hoped I was seeing things."

"Let's... let's keep moving."

The side passage branched too, every hundred meters or so, another hall branched off. These all ran in the same direction that Hina and Kai travelled. Footsteps echoed behind them.

Hina scraped lines on the floor at every intersection, pointing back the way they'd come.

The footsteps grew louder. A chittering sound came from behind them.

Kai led them on, increasing the pace to a jog that strained Hina's tired legs. He led them past three more intersections.

And then there was a door.

She nearly missed it. It was set into the wall, a pale rectangle, almost the same colour as the stone.

"Inside?" Kai asked.

Hina nodded. "I think so." She reached out and touched the door. It was cool and smooth to the touch. She pulled on the metal ring, the door swung open and they stepped through.

She pulled the door closed behind them, and stood watching it for a long moment. The footsteps grew louder and then stopped.

Hina waited, holding her breath.

The footsteps continued on up the corridor, getting further away. They faded into the distance.

"Wow," Kai's soft voice came from behind her.

The room dwarfed every other room Hina had ever been in. If she couldn't see the near wall stretching up towards the darkness where the ceiling should be, she might have wondered if they'd ended up outside. But no. The sky—the ceiling—was completely empty, but Hina could still see.

The stone of the floor dipped and rose like a natural thing, continuing on in all directions except behind them.

And in the middle distance, rising above the stone, and standing against the dark, was a little wooden cottage. Smoke puffed up from its stone chimney.