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Miryam’s head peaked above the sling, her fragile nostrils flaring at new scents. Kai felt miniature aura tremors run through her body, reflexive sampling of the environnt. To distract her, he pulled out a decrepit two-star core and let her gnaw. Runes along her dorsal crest lit pale topaz, then faded once she swallowed.
The boars used their tusk-plows to push the scree aside, creating a narrower but stable groove. Shards skittered down the slope like glass rain, each clatter echoed for seconds.
By Mid morning, a sheet of clay rock fractured underfoot. Kai grabbed Luna’s wrist and hauled her back as a five-ter slab plumted. Stone Ram thrust one tusk into the cliff wall, hinges in his neck joints absorbing the jolt. Iron Ram anchored the sled with his opposite tusk, legs braced. The slab crashed into a lower shelf and exploded into glitter.
Kai’s Insight traced micro cracks radiating from the new gap. He ordered the boars to angle higher and the procession resud.
By noon they reached the pre marked waypoint. It was a ring of half lted granite boulders surrounding an ancient nhir. The stone, one of Skyweaver’s survey markers, contained a fist sized pocket of star tal ore.
Skyweaver unfolded her wings, heat glands along the leading edges venting white steam. She pressed her hands to the ore, violet light pulsed and slag trickled out like glowing honey. With deft strokes of wing tip claws she sculpted the soft tal into a way spike, a palm length obelisk etched with Kai’s sigil. Once cooled, the spike was hamred into the nhir top, flaring crimson. It would serve as a beacon in storm haze for the return journey.
Tunnel Crown used his mandibular chisels to carve depth ticks along the spike, marking barotric pressure at the mont of forging data for future navigation.
Heart Mason uncapped a drum and distributed nutrient pucks soaked in star milk whey. Luna fed Miryam droplets. The wyrmling accepted them, still refusing to speak with Luna but no longer shrinking away.
Kai studied the lightning brewing over the rift, bursts now every eight or nine seconds. "Phase-shift intensifies." He estimated one day before everything stabilized.
The next valley, called Graven Hollow on archaic maps, was a sunken forest petrified by a primordial eruption. Obsidian trunks jutted like gloss black pillars, brittle branches linked together in the wind, producing eerie music.
Kai ordered single-file formation. He advanced, spear butt testing ground for sinkholes. During the second kiloter a glass serpentine uncoiled from a hollow log. It was three ters of segnted silica, jaws ringed with needle teeth. Its movent produced razor keen shrieks.
Vexor wasn’t present with him like the desert dune mission to take the vanguard position. This ti Stone Ram filled the vanguard killer role, he ramd his left tusk under the serpent’s jaw, flipping it skyward. Kai’s spear impaled the creature mid arc, then flung it against a trunk where it shattered. Skyweaver caught shards on her heat resistant wing mbranes, folding them into a specin pouch, obsidian scales often ground into anti illusion powder.
Near the hollow’s heart, lightning shadows flashed through gaps overhead. Static raised everyone’s hair. Luna reported aura readings spiking to tenfold. Kai decided to anchor a second way spike. As they worked, Miryam hissed softly inside Kai’s mind,
Kai soothed her and quickened pace. Tell Luna to cover Miryam’s ears with sothing.
Late afternoon found the party crossing a field of sun bleached skeletons. Long dead herds must have stampeded during a past storm surge. The bones were fused into a single calcareous crust that rang hollow.
Tunnel Crown’s antennae quivered. "Sub-cavities beneath," he warned. They took a test step; the crust sagged. Iron ram dropped a tiny fla pellet; it burned green then winked out indicating low oxygen below.
"We spread weight," Kai said. He lashed ropes from sled to each boar, redistributed packs among the team, then guided them along zigzag paths where the bone layer appeared thicker. He felt the ground flex but hold.
Halfway through, Miryam’s sling vibrated. The wyrmling’s gills flared, sand aura seeped from her pores in small motes. She wasn’t panicked but exhilarated. Luna eyed her warily; Kai shook his head. "She slls food or sothing that is useful to her trapped below, but the crust is too unstable to harvest. Let’s move on."
They exited the basin as dusk bled across the sky. In the rear distance, minor cave-ins marked where scavenger beasts attempted to follow but broke through the bone shell.
The wind had teeth but Kai’s mind burned hotter. With every asured stride he replayed Shadeclaw’s ntal sketch, a pulse-map of tunnels, ravines, and a single hairline fissure spiraling into the rift basin. The scout had overlaid direction with sll, heat, even acoustics data encoded as flashes of taste and color. Each ti Kai blinked, red glyph icons floated in darkness:
Copper Salt Crevasse is safe descent.
Obsidian Fan skirt northern edge; ground is thin.
Vein Gate waterfall curtain hides crawlspace; unguarded (for now).
That last marker pulsed brightest. Vein Gate was their private doorstep to the storm. Shadeclaw had found a hidden entrance. It was a few hundred tres away from the main entrance. Specifically five to six hundred.
A few monts later...
The ridge lted into a long slash of tawny listone. It ended abruptly at a rift no wider than three body lengths but plunging out of sight. Down its walls oozed greenish brine that left verdigris streaks, copper-salt.
"Point one," Kai murmured.
Stone Ram knelt and drove twin tusks into the lip; joints along his neck and shoulders ratcheted, deploying inner anchor spikes that locked into stone. Iron Rampant mirrored him on the opposite side. Tunnel Crown threaded rope through boar harness loops and lowered the sled first, its runners greased with wax for a silent glide.
Skyweaver unfolded wings, thermal sacs glowing bright. She leapt, rode a cushion of rising heat, then spread out dust laden mbranes to create a shimring updraft that reduced free fall speed for the passengers.
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