The iron world of Agashima swallowed them whole the moment they left the shadow of the bridge. The air was a thick, living thing—cool and damp, yet carrying the deep, earthy scent of wet pine needles undercut by the sharp, mineral tang of hot metal from distant forges. The ground beneath their feet wasn't earth, but compacted slag and iron-rich gravel that crunched with every step. Above, the colossal cables of the Iron-Web Bridge formed a ragged, man-made sky, dripping condensation that fell like cold, metallic rain.
They stood at the edge of the Moselle Moat, the river flowing with a heavy, silent purpose below, its surface sheened with a rainbow oil-slick of minerals. In Marya's palm, the scrap of Vivre Card, a piece of Jannali's life force, twitched like a nervous animal. She watched it, her face a mask of calm concentration. The paper edge strained, not toward the towering iron spires of Metz-Oni, but away, pulling insistently toward the dark, ore-veined mountains in the distance.
Galit peered over her shoulder, his long neck curving like a question mark. "What is it?"
"It's moving," Marya said, her voice low. "Toward the highlands."
Galit's brow furrowed, his emerald eyes darting between the city's glowing forge-heart and the brooding silhouettes of the Vosges Ridges. "Away from the capital? Maybe they escaped."
Jelly, who had been vibrating in place, gave an enthusiastic bounce that lifted him a foot off the gravel. "Adventure! Hide and Seek! Find friends! Bloop!"
A faint, wry smirk touched Marya's lips at his antics before fading. She closed her eyes, the world narrowing to the flow of her Kenbunshoku Haki. She pushed her awareness out, past the immediate thunder of Ogre heartbeats and the furnace-roar of industry, searching for the familiar, stubborn sparks of her crew. Her consciousness swept over the forests, the swamps, and up the steep slopes. It snagged on a concentration of powerful, watchful auras within the highest plateau, centered on a structure that felt ancient, heavy, and oddly silent amidst the island's hum. Her eyes snapped open, her gaze locking onto a distant, megalithic shape silhouetted against the bruised twilight sky: the Lugh-Grange.
Her hand clenched around the Vivre Card, crumpling its corner. Her jaw tightened.
Galit read the shift in her posture. "What is it?"
"I think I know where they are," she said, the words flat. "And it looks like a trap."
Galit lifted a single, skeptical eyebrow. "You were expecting something else?"
Marya let out a short breath through her nose, the closest she came to a sigh. "Not really. But I was hoping for a simple 'break in, break out' scenario. Fewer ominous, ancient temples."
They fell into a tactical silence, but the island had other ideas. A deep, rhythmic THUD began to shake the ground, vibrating up through the soles of Marya's boots. Another joined it, then a third—a slow, monstrous cadence. From around a bend in the massive road, three Ogres appeared.
They were not merely tall; they were geography in motion. Seventy feet of corded muscle and greyish skin stretched over frames that made the giants of Elbaph look like adolescents. They wore heavy smocks of coarse linen, reinforced with patched metal plates, and their faces were like weathered cliff faces, broad and impassive. Each footfall was a localized earthquake, causing gravel to dance and the cables above to hum a low, discordant note. The air around them carried the smell of cool stone, damp earth, and a faint, clean aroma like crushed herbs.
Jelly's starry eyes bulged, his entire gelatinous body quivering into a blur. His jaw hung open. "B-b-bloop!" he finally squeaked, his voice a tiny whisper of awe. "So… big!"
Marya blinked, her analytical mind overriding sheer astonishment. "They're larger than the Elbaph giants," she murmured, more to herself than the others. The scale was wrong, designed for a different world.
"Movement," Galit hissed, his voice all business. He grabbed Marya's arm and Jelly's makeshift collar in one fluid motion, yanking them back into the deep shadow of a gargantuan bridge pylon. "I don't think they see us."
They pressed against the cold, riveted iron as the trio behemoths passed. The wind of their passage ruffled Marya's hair. She watched their massive, sabot-shod feet, each one the size of a fishing skiff, lift and fall with a ground-shaking finality. They didn't scan or patrol; they simply were, as permanent and inevitable as the mountains themselves.
No sooner had they passed than another group approached from the opposite direction. These Ogres were smaller—though 'smaller' was a relative term, meaning a mere twenty to thirty feet tall. They moved with more urgency, carrying massive iron baskets filled with raw, glowing ore that heated the air around them. Their features were less rugged, their movements speaking of labor, not immutable presence.
Galit's eyes tracked both groups. "It appears there are castes. Different sizes, different roles."
Marya gave a slow nod, her curiosity piqued despite the urgency. "Yeah. I wonder what deter—"
"We better get moving," Galit interrupted, his neck uncoiling as he scanned the now-clear path toward the foothills. "The longer we stand here wondering, the longer our friends sit in that 'trap'."
Marya blinked, the researcher in her shelving the question. "Right." She turned and snatched a still-gawking Jelly by the back of his bandana. "Eyes forward, Squish. The big, stompy sightseeing tour is over."
Jelly wobbled back to coherence as she set him down. "But they were so wiggly! In a stompy way! Do you think they play bounce?"
"Somehow," Galit said dryly, already leading the way onto a smaller, older path that branched away from the main road and began to climb, "I doubt their primary recreational activity involves you."
The path wound upward, leaving the immediate industrial thunder of the capital for the eerie quiet of the Mirabelle Woods. The trees here were strange, beautiful things. Their bark had a silvery, metallic sheen, and they bore hard, crystalline fruits that glimmered like pale purple lanterns. A faint, chill breeze stirred the branches, and the fruits touched one another with a sound like hundreds of tiny, clear bells—a haunting, beautiful chorus that made the hair on Marya's arms stand up. It was the sound of the Mirabelle Woods, a lament carried on the wind.
They moved in silence, a three-point formation: Galit ahead, his neck constantly weaving, reading the terrain and the wind; Marya in the center, a calm, focused nucleus; and Jelly bringing up the rear, though 'bringing up the rear' involved bouncing off trees, investigating weird fungi, and occasionally getting his foot stuck in a crevice with a soft bloop of surprise.
The higher they climbed, the more the atmosphere changed. The clean, mineral scent of the lowlands was replaced by a drier, colder air that smelled of ancient dust and static. The bell-fruit trees grew sparser, replaced by jagged outcrops of the orange-glowing iron ore. The Lugh-Grange loomed larger, no longer a shape on the horizon but a dominating presence. It was a vast, circular mound of fitted stone, older than anything else on the island, covered in spiraling carvings worn smooth by wind and time. It looked less like a building and more like a great, stony fist thrust up from the heart of the mountain, clutching some secret to its chest.
Marya stopped, holding up a closed fist. Galit froze instantly, melting into the shadow of a rock. Jelly, mid-bounce, reconstituted himself into a wobbly crouch.
"What?" Galit mouthed.
Marya didn't answer. She was looking at the Vivre Card. It had stopped pulling. It lay flat in her palm, pointing directly at the stone megalith, its movement stilled. It had reached its destination.
A trap, indeed. Not one that snapped shut, but one that sat, patient and heavy as the stones around it, waiting for them to walk in.
She closed her fingers over the paper, her golden eyes fixed on the entrance to the Lugh-Grange—a dark, triangular slit in the ancient stone, like a knife wound in the mountain. The cheerful, chiming bells of the woods felt very far away.
"Alright," she said, her voice barely a whisper yet carrying absolute clarity. "Let's see what's on the guest list."
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