"There's a buried Instrument up ahead."
"Already? We just got started…"
Enza threw a pebble into the clearing. It landed on solid ground.
She walked to the center and began digging down with both hands. The ash here was dense enough to stand on, but still somewhat malleable.
Athalia stood guard, slowly turning in a circle. The pair were deep enough into the forest that they couldn't see the tram station anymore.
"Still no movement."
Enza's hands suddenly collided with a hard object.
"Got something."
She yanked it hard until it came free. She wiped off the ash and showed the object to Athalia.
"A deck of cards?" Athalia chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I wonder what the special property is."
"Perhaps it's a cheat deck?"
Athalia smiled at Enza's guess. "If that's the case, I know someone who would be dying to have this Instrument. Personally, I'm guessing it's weaponry of some kind."
"You mean throwing the cards to attack? That could be interesting. It could also have the ability to produce magic tricks."
Athalia took the deck and fanned the cards. Meanwhile, Enza peered over the hole she had dug.
"Hold on…
"There's something else here."
Athalia was shocked. "Two Instruments? No, are the cards just a part of a larger Instrument? When have two ever been uncovered at the same site?"
Enza didn't reply and reached her hand into the hole.
She withdrew it suddenly and exclaimed in pain.
"It's hot! Don't touch it!"
"What is it? I can't see; move out of the way."
Athalia leaned over the hole and gazed upon a magic wand. Black with a white tip.
She looked back at Enza.
"How badly burned are you?"
No more than first degree. But still…"
Athalia chuckled. "An overheated magic wand… did someone use it recently?"
Enza frowned as she noticed a detail. There were small letters carved into the wand.
SKIP (1)
"Look at that. What do you suppose it means?"
Athalia's poor eyesight forced her to get mere inches away from the wand, enough to feel the heat radiating off it. "A skip, huh? Skipping what? A stratum?"
Enza nodded in agreement. "I thought the same. But doesn't that pose a serious problem?"
Athalia looked worried. "Yeah… who used it?"
They stood in silence for a moment, until Athalia's nose twitched.
"Rain's two minutes away."
In reply, Enza reached into the forested part of her armor and pulled out a metal pole from within. She pressed a button on the side, and one end of the pole snapped into a dome shape. It was a metal umbrella. The canopy was more than large enough for both Explorers.
They followed the colored tape to another ashen tree and took a seat at its base. Enza pressed the umbrella tightly down on both of their heads.
The wind had completely died down.
Splish
Fizz
"That's the first drop. The Instruments still aren't dancing? I guess they must be tired, haha…"
Athalia didn't hear a reply to her low-quality quip. She looked over at Enza, getting ready to be annoyed with her, but saw her companion's eyes wide open with shock.
"What's wrong?"
Enza pointed at the umbrella canopy covering them.
Splish
Fizz
Another drop had fallen. This time, Athalia immediately knew what had frightened Enza.
"It fizzed! The acid is degrading the metal? What could have changed? Isn't platinum invulnerable?"
Splish splish splish, fizz fizz, fizz.
The rain was picking up. Athalia started taking deep breaths to quell the panic building inside her chest.
Enza noticed and put her hand on Athalia's shoulder. "It's going to be okay. We should both do our best to stay calm. Can you tell me how long it's going to be until the storm ends?"
"T-two minutes."
Athalia's voice was still shaky, but Enza's hand on her shoulder was calming her down significantly.
"Alright. We have two options. Option one is to stay here and try to wait it out. I can't use my echolocation to determine how quickly the metal is being corroded… perhaps with more practice. But anyway, the other option is to stand up and retrace our path to the tram as fast as possible.
Athalia immediately shook her head. "The path will be wet. Even if it weren't, it'd still take too long."
Enza smiled. "I'm glad we can agree. Now, I'll be taking these, if you don't mind…"
She reached into Athalia's pocket and stole the playing cards back. She broke the seal and shuffled, then dealt the two of them one card each, faceup.
Despite the situation, Athalia couldn't help crack a smile when she saw her card.
The queen of diamonds.
However, the design was hand-drawn and rather sloppily at that.
"Come on, they even drew the crown with the wrong color… what kid made these?"
Slap
Enza's hand covered Athalia's card. "War."
She took the card and set it next to her own card. Athalia stared at her in puzzlement.
"You didn't even explain the rules…"
Enza sighed. "You don't remember? We used to play this all the time."
A lightbulb lit up in Athalia's head. "Ah, yeah… war… it's just a game of luck, isn't it?"
"Unlike real war, yes. And also unlike real war, the bigger value automatically wins here."
"Isn't that pedantic? A bigger number usually does win in war, and a game like this is obviously a heavily simplified metaphor."
Enza rolled her eyes. "Be quiet. Just tell me when there are ten seconds until the rain stops."
The rain was pounding on the umbrella now. Enza's and Athalia's fists clenched tighter and tighter as they continued to play their game of luck.
"Alright, it's at ten seconds."
Enza put the cards away and glanced to the side.
The small pit where the magic wand lay was just barely tucked under the umbrella.
"When I touched it, I felt an electrical sensation. I'm pretty sure all we have to do is touch it to activate the skip. I think it just hadn't cooled down enough earlier. Now, grab my hand. If a single drop breaks through, we both touch it. Got it?"
Athalia nodded and grabbed onto Enza. They both stared at the canopy above them, their hands inches from the magic wand.
Splish, splish, splish, splish; fizz, fizz, fizz, fizz.
Splish-splash, fizz-fizz.
Splish
Fizz
The two Explorers let out a sigh of relief and withdrew their hands.
After waiting a few more moments to be safe, Enza knocked the umbrella aside.
The pair stood up and surveyed the area.
The rain had soundlessly knocked all the ash that wasn't part of a solid path into the abyss below. The crisscrossing pattern of walkways was clearly visible now. A layer of ash had also been washed from the walkways themselves, revealing their true material—canvas painted in solid orange. In the distance, the catwalks ended, and the ground became solid.
Enza gazed at the paint—which was completely dry and unaffected by the acid—and started peppering Athalia with questions.
"How far is the next storm?"
"I'd say half an hour, but it's hard to tell since it's just rained."
"Did you notice anything different about the smell of the acid?"
"Not at all."
Enza frowned and turned her eyes to the umbrella.
"This thing has to be the source of the problem."
The acid had melted the canopy away to mere millimeters. It makes Enza shiver.
Athalia fidgeted with her hands. "Should we bring it with us to have it examined back in Alavieska?"
Enza shook her head. "Even though the acid has evaporated, it's probably not a good idea to touch it."
There was a moment of silence.
"…So, what do we do? You're leading right now, so I'll leave it to you."
Enza tapped her foot. "I think it's obvious. We have to use that 'skip' thing. Without the umbrella, we can't get through another storm. We could probably make it back to the tram and hide under it before the next one starts, but it wouldn't do us any good in the long run. We still need to proceed—only after mapping the sentence, of course."
Athalia gave her a thumbs up. "No notes. I'll get to it."
She pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from her pocket. She began jogging along the canvas catwalks and drawing a line to mark her path. Enza did the same thing, traversing in the opposite direction.
They quickly completed the task and met in the center.
Both of them wore puzzled expressions.
Athalia laughed when she realized neither of them could make sense of their own half. "Better hope it makes more sense with both halves."
They put their sheets of paper together and peered over the sentence…
"You can trust the Foreman."
Enza drummed her fingers on the paper. "I don't know of any 'Foreman.' Do you?"
"Nope. Perhaps it's a warning of something up ahead…"
Athalia suddenly felt a burning pain shoot up her arm.
"The rain!"
Both Explorers leaped forward towards the magic wand in unison. When their hands touched it, they both vanished…
Athalia's world blinked. She couldn't put her finger on the moment her mind turned off. All she knew was it was back on now.
She couldn't tell up from right from sideways. She could only feel one sensation—nausea. Endless and gyroscopic. Nausea beyond the point of vomiting, the kind that leaves you begging for mercy. She was certain she was doomed to be nauseous for eternity.
SLAP
Her nausea shattered like glass. She had thought it would be stronger than that. It was replaced by a stinging pain on her cheek.
Her eyes flew open. A figure was standing over her, cutting a chunk out of a blistering white sky.
Long black hair, spiky like icicles, with a tattered blue ribbon on the right side. Green eyes that shone bright despite the dark circles under them.
In her right hand, she has a snowball. She raised it over her head…
Athalia rolled out of the way just in time. She quickly balled up a large handful of snow and threw it at her opponent's face.
She dodged, but it grazed her hand.
"Ow! Hey, there was a rock in that…"
Athalia didn't apologize. "Enza, you were going to attack me while I was defenseless? Have you no shame?"
Enza flipped out of the way as another snowball rocketed towards her face. Unfortunately, she didn't see the second one following the path of her dodge.
She lay in the snow, her panting melting the snowball that was stuck to her face. She stared up at the triumphant Athalia.
Auburn hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Deep brown eyes that were hard to read and sharp eyebrows.
Athalia smiled and dropped the snowball she was holding, then extended her hand. Enza ignored it and stood up by herself.
The pair gazed out at the field of snow before them. It was perfectly circular. In the center lay a giant snow globe that was as tall as a ten-story building. The snow within was at rest, decorating the roofs of a picturesque European village with patches of white.
"That skip worked better than expected. We're halfway up the second stratum."
Athalia put a handful of snow in her mouth, to Enza's disgust. "Yeah, that's 1.5 skips. can't be mad about the free bonus. The wand didn't come with us; I suppose it's a disposable kind of Instrument. We can confirm on the way back."
As she spoke, she turned to look down the mountain.
Below the field, a jagged face of rock and ice cut down sharply. It was the same for up above. The only sound that could be heard was from a gentle breeze…
"My turn to lead."
Athalia grinned and strode towards the snow globe. As she walked, she took out the Measuring Anchor that was tightly wrapped around her arm.
Shielding her eyes from the bright ambient light, she peered high up on the snow globe's glass wall.
There was a cutout as big as a person and shaped like a fist…
Athalia spun in a circle and whipped the Measuring Anchor towards the opening. Enza caught up and grabbed onto her arm.
Athalia looked over her shoulder to meet Enza's eyes, a devious expression on her face.
"You'd better hold on with both hands!"