Even if it had been easier than expected getting in here, nobody was taking that as an excuse to relax. There was enough lingering nervous energy floating around, and it hadn’t quite been ‘spent’. I tucked the disc back into my belt, a little bit annoyed at the waste of magic it had been. Still, better to have it and not need it, I suppose. Gently, I stepped through the doorway, noting the corrosion that had set in around the frame, and clearly weakened the hinges. For all that it was still mostly intact, this whole place was the better part of a millennium old, so decay should really be expected.

  I went into the corridor, which was wide enough that I could at least stand next to Eoin and Nalfis without having to squeeze past so I could get a view. The corridor was a wreck, but the lights had stayed on, so it was a wreck I could see. Splintered metal lay in random piles, deep scratches had been gouged into the walls where the doors had hit them, while the doors themselves had crumpled and folded, now lying like a shitty, rucked-up carpet. From where the doors were, the whole mess only extended about 3 metres. A nice, contained bit of devastation.

  Beyond the wreckage, the corridor ran only another couple of metres before it branched apart, offering left and right. Mercifully, it looked like there were signs, though I couldn’t read them from here. I just had to hope they hadn’t also faded into nothing like half the ones in the previous room.

  “A blunt instrument perhaps, but a fine performance nevertheless.” I snapped back into the present, looking around to see Nalfis grinning at me (and at his own joke), as he put his lyre away, tucking it into a specially-made pocket sewn on the inside of his coat. It did a good job at deflating the tension, and I let myself breathe out properly, relaxing my taut muscles. I wasn’t the only one. Collectively, the occupants of this corridor probably lost about a foot of height as we actually let ourselves slouch a little bit. I noticed though that with the exception of Nalfis, nobody was ‘disarming’. We just stopped behaving as if we expected something to jump out of the walls. “So,” he continued, “where next?”

  Everyone took that question as a cue to actually start talking again, and a discussion quickly started. Not one that answered Nalfis’ question though. That would have been far too sensible. Instead, it was yet another boring spat of the “what are we doing here” name-calling, snide comments, unsubtle threats variety. I tuned it out the second I heard Eoin complain.

  Having less-than-zero interest in getting involved, I gingerly approached the end of the corridor. I did my absolute best to avoid stepping on too many pieces of anything – there was some sort of lingering historical respect I had for them. A bit hypocritical, I chided myself, since you were the one who destroyed them. I conceded the point to my own brain, but I could at least pretend to have standards.

  Luckily, the signs weren’t too faded to read, but I did have to squint a bit in some places. It was a whole list of different rooms, some of which translated better than others, but the words at the bottom caught my eye.

  COMMAND PLATFORM

  Jackpot.

  I briefly remembered my earlier musings about what it would be like up there. The images in my mind were getting more vivid as we got closer and I let my imagination run wild. I closed my eyes, picturing every detail, nudging each chair and desk into the ‘correct’ position until the room was all in order. It was like anything you’ve half-forgotten – you can’t remember how it’s meant to look until you see a reminder, and then it comes back to you, filling in piece-by-piece.

  I wonder how comfortable the chair is? I thought. It was a reasonable thought to have. There must be a captain’s chair or something. What’s the point of being the most important person on a construct like this if you can’t at least have a nice chair? I tried to design it in my mind, but nothing felt right. A big armchair would be entirely out of keeping, but a brass chair? Who’d want to sit on that? Not you, my brain added. I’d probably agree.

  (Also, if you see me describing my brain as a separate person, don’t worry! I’m not going mad, I just find it lets me dodge accountability for my bad decisions by treating it like a little gremlin that makes additional comments and not just… me.)

  I opened my eyes again and looked at the signs. Curiously, it had the ‘COMMAND PLATFORM’ label on the bottom of both the left and right signs. If the direction didn’t matter, then… “I think it’s a ring,” I called out, still reading the signs. “Both sides end at the same place.” Everyone at least stopped arguing when I said that, which was nice. Nalfis asked the obvious question.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “How do you know?”

  “One sign points left, one goes right, both say the same thing at the bottom. Seems logical to me.”

  “Could there not be two of whatever they say?” Tove asked. I shook my head.

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” They ambled over, crunching the various bits of detritus and making me wince.

  “Why not?”

  “Observe”. I used my staff to point at the relevant bits as I replied, tapping the signs for emphasis and dramatic effect. “These words at the bottom,” I gestured to each with my stick, revelling in the sensation of authority, “they match, correct?”

  “Yes?” Alf hedged, clearly prompting me to keep going. I obliged.

  “Right. Well, they do. Anyway, the point isn’t so much that they match, but more what they are pointing at, which-”

  “Wait,” he interrupted. “You can read this?”

  “Yeah, and what it says is-” I didn’t get to finish before he cut me off again.

  “Would you mind telling us why you can read this?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It just seems… unusual, is all”

  “I hardly see why,” I muttered.

  “Because you are a young human and this is a very very very old Gnomish thing,” Tove answered. I caught a weird sense of curiosity from her, but even more weirdly from everyone else as well. This seemed to be the first thing they actually agreed on, and for some stupid reason it was about why I was bilingual. I’m sure each of them was as well – the human language was the ‘default’, but most races lived in fairly singular communities where they each spoke their own. Why was it so strange to them that a human might have learned something else?

  “I really don’t understand why you all care, but if it indulges your curiosity, I learned it while I was working as an archaeologist, since so much ‘old stuff’,” I gestured all around us for emphasis, “is Gnomish. Happy?”

  “What do you mean, ‘while you worked’?” Alf spat, incredulous. “You look like you’re about 10 years old!”

  “And you look like you should be pushing up daisies, old man, but here we both are,” I snapped. He just huffed and muttered something about ‘youth these days’. “How did you learn it?” Nalfis asked.

  “Friend taught me.”

  “Who was your friend?” Eoin asked.

  “A Gnome.”

  “What was he called?” Tove asked. I was beyond fed-up by this point. Getting asked a list of questions by a group of people about why you know a language is, I can guarantee you, even more boring than reading such a list, so I put a stop to it. “Look. None of this matters, and I don’t have to explain my life to you about something weirdly niche that you’re all apparently fixated on, do I?” They didn’t have a good answer. Bloody Hel, did they really just think they could keep asking me questions and I would just keep answering? Privacy exists; and you know what? It’s amazing.

  “So if it’s all the same to you, instead of asking why I know this language, why don’t you all sit back and appreciate that I do know it, so that we can learn exciting things and go forward confidently like the joyous comrades we are?” I’d started that sentence at what was already a moderate level of sarcasm, and by the end it was dripping so heavily from each word that I’m surprised I wasn’t leaving a puddle on the floor.

  I know what you’re thinking. Don’t go there.

  Rant finished, I turned around and got on with it. “Clearly none of you have any respect for showmanship and presentation,” in the background, Nalfis made a noise of complaint, “so I’ll just say it plainly. These words at the bottom both say ‘Command Platform’. That doesn’t strike me as something you’d have two of, so there’s my reasoning for why this loops around. Plus, I think we’re in the head. Heads are round.”

  “Well you have to admit,” Nalfis commented, “that it’s solid logic.” I nodded to him in thanks. “Which only leaves us with the question of which way we’d rather go.” He peered down each, as did we all, but they were both as featureless as the other. “Indy – I’d like to apologise for our behaviour, and thank you for sharing your talents with us so far.Would you be kind enough to indulge us a moment longer and explain what the rest of each sign says?”

  I knew he was trying to mollify me, but frankly, it worked. He was just so earnest, that even though I still felt I was being patronised, I at least got the impression someone was listening to me, and not just tolerating me. Also, I wanted to pick a route as well (the correct answer at moments like this is, almost always, ‘left’), so I nodded and turned back to looking at the signs.

  “Should I give a rundown?”