I had a problem, and that problem was in the shape of these followers I assumed I had. Even if I could stay ahead of them the whole way to the top, I would eventually reach it, and then what? I’d be cornered, was what. I was keeping up a punishing pace as I climbed, and I don’t mind saying I was suffering. My stitch had developed a stitch, my arms were getting ready to go on strike, and the sweat pouring off me was threatening to blind me. Even trying to use the back of my hand to wipe the sweat away from my eyes really only accomplished smearing hand-sweat across my face. Lovely, isn’t it? Stumbling through those occasional sauna-like rooms full of pipes wasn’t helping either. For one thing, they were boiling hot, and for another I had to be super careful about where I put any part of my body that I didn’t want to get burned. I've been there before, and it's not fun.

  Luckily, and to my immense delight, something changed. The ladder I was climbing led into a small room instead of another stupid corridor. I could see a few other holes in the floor as I climbed up, with other ladders disappearing down into them. I guessed this was the equivalent of the ‘waist’ below, where the branching paths rejoined. The neck, maybe? Whatever. I practically stumbled off the top of the ladder as I got up, shucked my bag off, and collapsed to my knees, panting for breath. I’d basically just climbed a 30 story building, and it sucked exactly as much as you’d expect. Slowly and uncomfortably, I rolled on to my back and lay there, looking up at the ceiling. There was some lighting in here, orange instead of green, more like torchlight.

  I shuffled over to a wall and propped myself up against it to look around. There was a single wide staircase leading up and out, with double doors at the end. This staircase actually had railings for once, almost like the designers cared about safety. They were flimsy-looking and tarnished though, so I don't think they cared that much. There was an even-more tarnished sign on the wall as well, written in Gnomish and pointing to the different holes in the floor. Two out of four were illegible, destroyed by time. Of the other two, one read “Barracks” and the last, the hole I had climbed out of, said something that didn’t seem to translate perfectly into Common as far as I could tell. It looked like a compound word, along the lines of “Advance Force Storage”. Not terribly helpful.

  For clarity: I speak Gnomish, mainly for reasons like this. It's a bit like speaking Latin if you study Ancient Rome. You might be able to get away without it, but it definitely unlocks the next layer. And again, like Latin, Gnomes today have moved on from the version I know. We could have a conversation, but I would sound very "thee" and "thou" to them.

  Once I’d sat for long enough for my heart to stop feeling like it was about to explode, I stood up again, shouldered my bag, and sort of meandered to the top of the stairs. The doors were metal, heavy-looking, and the most ornate things I'd seen so far, having the barest amount of decoration put into them. The one I picked scraped on the floor as I tried to push it open, but it did at least move, exposing some unlit space on the other side. It got stuck when it was a little bit open, so I poked my head through to take a look. As I did the room on the other side sparked to life. Bright white light filled it, and I screwed my eyes shut as they readjusted.

  While they were shut, I began to hear something. A low droning sound coming from the corridor, increasing in pitch and volume to a shrill, screeching whine that was echoing off the walls. A chorus of heavy ‘thunks’ sounded as well, and as I cracked my eyes open again and peered around, I saw a quartet of hatches in the ceiling swing open, each disgorging a pair of weird, floating metal orbs, giving off that high whine and glowing with a white light of their own.

  I stared at them for a second before one of them, terrifyingly, spoke. “Defective equipment detected,” it screeched in toneless, ancient Gnomish. I really hoped that had nothing to do with me. The orbs drifted into a grid, blocking the corridor entirely, before the strange, artificial screech returned, “defective equipment must be reconfigured.” My hope faded fast, before plummeting off of a cliff as, in sequence, the white glow from each of them switched to blood red. The whine grew ear-splitting, and a crackling mesh of lightning leapt from each to the other.

  I sensed I had made a mistake of some kind. The lightning net started drifting, unhurriedly, down the corridor towards me. I grabbed the handle of the door, heaving with all my limited might. The floaty-things advanced, the whining and crackling getting louder and, I felt, more urgent. The door had seized stubbornly in place, and the sort of magic I had was great at pushing things open, but less at pulling them shut. It was these sort of cheery, frantic thoughts that were flashing through my mind as bolts of electricity flashed in front of me. Muscles straining, I gave a desperate yank of the handle with everything I had. The door shifted, dislodging so quickly that the door was slammed shut with an almighty clanging.

  Having been throwing all my weight backwards, I suddenly lurched, lost my grip, and immediately tumbled back down the stairs. My bag was pretty much the only thing that stopped me from breaking my back. Somewhat dazedly, but happy that I was un-zapped enough to even feel dazed, I got back up, trying to shake it off. My inner ear and general vertigo rebelled, dropping me straight back down on my ass with a thump.

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  “I heard something ahead. It must be them” came a deeply unwelcome voice from somewhere below, echoing out of the ladder-hole I’d climbed out of earlier. I didn’t even know whose voice it was, and honestly I was a bit too rattled to give a shit. I could have gone down one of the other ladders in the room, but then what? For all I knew there were more of those floaty-things in all the other ones, and I’d get zapped. I figured by this point I might as well stop my frantic running and just see whatever was going to happen.

  Not without taking any precautions though – obviously. I went to a pouch sewn onto my bag, and got a pair of gloves out, concealing my hands (which I’m a little bit self-conscious about). If they paid enough attention they’d still see my thumb was on backwards and my fingers bent backwards as well, but even that generally attracts less attention than it being metal and wood. As I was pulling them on, a thought struck me. The floaty-thing had said something about defective equipment.

  Assuming it didn’t mean me overall in a really rude and ableist way, it was possible it was talking about my hand. It was, after all, based on Gnomish designs I’d 'repurposed'. Way back in the days of yore, the Gnomes had been great makers of fake people, and I, a real person, wanted to use a piece of that. The goal for my hand was to make a bridge between flesh and metal, but if the original purpose of the tech was 'metal only', this might count as defective. It felt logical enough to me.

  Holding my staff in my right hand, I let my left hand drift across the many pockets I had, trying to decide on the best spell for the situation. Some were aggressive, some were defensive, but I didn't know what sort of impression I wanted to set, or how much danger I thought I was in. I glanced as well at the wood and metal disc, about the size of a small bowl, that was attached to my belt. My fingers traced the rings and swirls as I thought about whether to unhook it. Let's leave that for now, I thought. No point showing everything off. I went back to my pockets, took out a bead, and rolled it into the barrel on top of my staff. The bead itself had the neat trick of looking shiny, and was a pretty non-hostile middle option. The spell would make the floor in a small area incredibly slippery. Handy for running away if you can put it between you and any pursuers. Also just unbelievably funny.

  I could hear a degree of huffing and puffing coming from down the hole, so I figured they were nearly here. I’m a firm believer in a strong first impression, so I went and sat on the steps, high enough to look down, and with my bag propped to the side. I was going for ‘regal and insouciant’, a look that said “I’ve been waiting for you, and I hate being kept waiting”. Casual, calm, collected, and confident. A voice sounded below and my heart damn near jumped out of my chest.

  “This looks like the last ladder. The light’s different up there.” I think that was the voice of Nalfis, kicking off a conversation of half-murmurs as the sounds of shuffling and heavy breathing all congregated. Suckers, I thought. I’d got my heavy breathing all over and done with already. “So which of you is going up first then?” came Eoin’s voice.

  “Well as ‘mission leader’” said Alf “wouldn’t you like that honour?” I could hear the sarcasm, and so could Eoin. He laughed, but it was really just a singular ‘Ha’ that sounded entirely unamused. “You’re all the brave warriors here,” he said “I am but a humble priest, and I’m ordering one of you to volunteer.”

  “Not much of a ‘volunteer’ thing is it then” muttered Tove.

  “I simply don’t care.”

  "I think we should put it to a vote," Nalfis said.

  “Well vote for one of yourselves, then,” Eoin said. “What’s got you all so afraid anyway?”

  “It’s a ladder,” said Tove.

  “And?”

  “And we don’t know who or what is at the top of said ladder,” she continued. “We can reasonably assume that it is at most, one person, who we saw entering earlier, and under normal circumstances we would outnumber them greatly and this would increase our confidence, but since this room is only accessible via ladder-”

  “I take your point Tove,” said Eoin.

  “I’m not finished,” she retorted. “But in this case we can only enter the room in single file, with the use of our arms already taken up by climbing a ladder, and we know nothing, really, about the attitude or abilities of this mysterious person we are chasing, other than them having probably some amount of magic unless we’re assuming they have very sticky feet, and that they are perhaps very brave or very foolish to run straight up to this thing, and they probably don’t like us since they blew us off earlier, and they seem to have tricked us last night if we are following on our theory from earlier that the figure in our camp last night who has since disappeared without anyone noticing is also the figure who ran past us a short while ago looking entirely different, and so really none of us want to go first.” There was a brief, blessed moment of silence, before Eoin spoke again. “Are you quite finished?” he semi-hissed.

  “No,” I could hear the smile in her voice. “I think it’s also worth pointing out that you’re a huge bitch.”

  “Mind how you speak, dwarf. You’re treading awfully close to insubordination.”

  “Close? How can I get the rest of the way then?”

  “Before anyone says anything they might regret,” Nalfis interrupted, “might I remind us all that this isn’t getting us any closer to answering the question of ‘which of us is going up first’?” There was a bit of a stirring and mumbled noises of assent to that, but by this point, I was getting bored.

  "Yeah," I yelled, "who is first?"

  Sammy xx