Chapter 66 part 1

Wes groaned as he sat down. They'd been climbing for nearly two full months and he could feel it throughout his entire body.

They'd been travelling so much that he almost couldn't remember why they'd started coming up here in the first place. Although, part of the reason it took so long was the fact that they kept having to backtrack when the path they were taking ran into a dead end, paths that they had to blaze themselves, since there didn't seem to be set paths that they could see otherwise. The dead ends usually occurred at the top of a cliff that didn't have any way for them to cross without figuring out how to build a bridge without any tools or equipment to do so.

Wes was confident they'd be able to with their magic, but he was voted down each time. Even Ralph didn't seem to find it very funny, which said a lot to Wes. Though, it wasn't like he meant it as a joke, he was serious about it.

Yet now they were within sight of the summit, though it wasn't clear if the weather affected their ability to see whatever it was that they were supposed to be able to see.

"Wes, you alive up there?" Hannah called out from below him on the mountain.

"Yeah, just wishing we had a ski lift to take us back down."

"Wouldn't that be nice," Hannah replied with a smile. "Though, if there was, I'd hate to be the one assigned to maintain it. I mean you'd practically-"

Hannah stopped speaking as she heard a sound, and Wes couldn't complain as he heard it too. It wasn't one that they'd occasionally hear on their way up to this point, but it was one that indicated something strange, if not intelligent life.

"It sounds like a steam engine," Amelia said, apparently also hearing the sound.

"And you know that… how?" Tim asked, from the end of their line. "Last I checked, the closest that you probably would be able to get would be a train engine from an old movie."

"Hey, if you think it sounds any different than that, feel free to let me know what the difference is," Amelia retorted.

Wes tuned them out. He didn't care to figure out exactly what it sounded like, just where it came from. Especially since it wasn't repeating, it wasn't easy to locate. Although, as far as he knew, it would make the same sound every so often.

"You know, I think part of this mountain might be volcanic," Ralph remarked. "'Cause I'm seeing a few different kinds of rocks that I'm pretty sure are volcanic."

"What? Like obsidian?" Hannah asked, her tone only slightly mocking.

"Ha, ha," Ralph answered dryly. "I'm pretty sure we passed some granite yesterday and I think I just saw some rhyolite back there." Ralph pointed back the way they came.

"And you know this because…" Wes said, trailing off while he waited for Ralph to finish his sentence, the dispute between Amelia and Tim having gone into a bit of a cold war. Or silent war in their case.

"Hey, when your dad's a geologist, you pick up on these things from time to time," Ralph protested.

"He does have a point," Amelia called out.

Wes couldn't help but roll his eyes. Of all the times for Ralph to start getting intelligent, he couldn't figure out why he chose this time. Before he'd have expected Ralph to come up with some quip about the rocks that didn't have any intellectual value of any sort.

Though, as he thought about it, he had to admit that Ralph had been quieter than usual on this trip. At first he thought that Ralph had been more affected by Lily choosing to remain with Beth than he was willing to admit, but at this point he was starting to wonder if Ralph was trying to better himself in some way.

Which completely felt weird and out of character for him, but Wes couldn't think of how to explain it otherwise.

He looked up the mountain, wondering how much farther they had, since it was clear that they could see the summit, though that didn't necessarily mean that they'd be able to reach it quickly. Especially if it turned out that they'd need to backtrack again. Which We hoped the others would be willing to entertain his idea of using magic to create even a simple rope bridge to prevent that from being necessary.

He couldn't say if the others would agree this time or not, but he hoped that being able to see the summit would improve the likelihood of them changing their minds, as he could tell that they were getting worn out from having to do all that backtracking as well.

However, as he was about to look back to the others, he noticed something out of place. Some white mist that was rising too fast before it dissipated into nothing. He wasn't sure what might be causing it, but he had a feeling it might be related to the sound from earlier.

"Uh, guys?" he called back, feeling like he should first confirm what he was seeing before making any conclusions. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Hallucinations weren't something that typically caused by exhaustion, but with how they'd been foraging for foods that were growing on the mountainside, Wes couldn't say that they weren't eating something that could cause hallucinations. Especially ones that were completely out of place here. As if that white mist was anything close to what he was thinking, then it meant that someone was likely living up here.

"What?" Hannah replied. "Do we see wha- oh," she said, stopping herself midsentence as Wes could tell she could see it too, which also meant that he wasn't hallucinating anything. At least not yet.

"What is that?" Tim asked, sounding almost in awe of it.

"Not sure," Wes replied as he heard his friends walking up towards him. "I just barely noticed it. "I-" Wes stopped talking as the mist disappeared.

"You know, we should probably take the time to figure out what's going on," Amelia said. "It might have to do with that steam engine sound we heard earlier."

"We don't know that's what a steam engine sounds like," Tim commented.

"Prove me wrong!" Amelia retorted as she passed Wes and walked over to where they had been able to see the white mist above the side of a cliff.

Wes couldn't help but follow Amelia himself. Not because he thought Amelia was right about what the sound was, but rather because he thought that it was at least worth taking a look. Besides, whatever it was that had been creating the white mist, he'd like to see for himself.

As he reached the edge of the cliff ahead of them on the path they were taking, he could see a building. It wasn't the roughshod buildings that they mostly saw at the village where they first met Cinder and his family, but rather one that was clearly well built. One that could easily be considered a log cabin, though Wes couldn't say for sure who might have built it. Especially since there wasn't supposed to be anyone on this mountain other than him and his friends.

The cabin looked like it was comfortably situated in a valley that was formed by the cliffs around it, though Wes wasn't able to say if it was more of a boxed canyon, since the trees nearby it kind of made it hard to see much past them.

"Uh, guys-" Wes started to say.

"Yeah, we see it," Ralph said, a tone of wonder in his voice.

"It looks rather small," Amelia remarked.

"Well we are about… what? Fifty feet above it?" Tim asked.

Amelia shook her head. "No, I mean it looks like it'd be big enough for one person. Unless whoever lives there likes it rather cramped."

"Uh, I think I see a path from up here down there if we go over there," Ralph commented, pointing to a place where on the cliff ahead of them where their path continued on, but also had a set of switchbacks that led down to the valley. Something Wes wasn't sure he'd have been able to notice if it hadn't been pointed out to him.

"Well, we might as well go see who lives there," Hannah said.

"And what if they attack us?" Tim asked, sounding a little concerned. "I mean, no one's supposed to be up here, right? So, the only ones that I'd expect to be up here would be criminals. Those on the run from something they did and don't want to get caught."

"Or it could be someone who didn't want to get turned into a slave and didn't have anyone else who would miss them," Hannah countered. "Besides, as far as we know, there's a whole village up here that wants to stay hidden."

"Yeah, all the more reason they might be hostile towards us," Tim reiterated. "If they want to stay hidden, then they're not going to want to get word out that they're up here in the first place.

"Well, only one way to find out, right?" Ralph asked with his usual cheeky grin. The kind that he frequently gave the teachers when he gave ridiculous answers to the simplest of questions.

Wes kept an eye out for where the white mist might have come from, because he certainly didn't see anything like a chimney near where that mist had appeared, even as they made their way along the cliff that formed one of the boundaries of the valley that they could see. He knew what he'd seen, especially since others had seen it, but at the same time, it hardly felt like it had been there given the fact that they could see anything. No pipes that could have brought the mist there, no chimney, nothing.

He didn't say anything to his friends, as he recognized everyone's attention was on the cabin and the path that would lead them down to the cabin. Maybe it would have been different if they'd seen cabins all along the mountain as they travelled or if they had know it was going to be here, but it was clear that they'd stopped even thinking about the summit of the mountain to see what they could about the rumor that another land could be seen from up there.

As far as Wes was concerned, even though Tim found it in an old book, unless they saw it for themselves, it was a rumor. Otherwise he suspected that there'd be a way for them to learn about the land that was referred to there, even if only as a map.

Then again, he wasn't exactly sure what to expect on this world. Not when there was so much already that he wasn't sure about in general. Such as how it was that women were the ones who gained an increase in bone density and muscle mass instead of men. He just couldn't wrap his head around it.

As even the arachnoids were the same as humans on earth, where even though there were some female hunters, they didn't have the physical strength that the male hunters had. Though, they definitely were still rather formidable in their own right.

When they reached the switchbacks, they found that it was barely wide enough for one person to climb down it at a time. Plus, the ground had a lot of loose rocks, which meant it would be rather easy to slip and fall if they weren't careful.

"Uh, any chance we could see if there's another way down?" Wes asked, hoping that he wasn't the only one feeling a little uneasy about the loose rocks, as well as how far the fall would be if one of them did fall.

"There could be, but we at least know this one's here," Tim said as he started to walk down the path, one hand holding onto the cliff side. Even though Wes doubted that it'd do much help if he did fall.

His friends took turns starting down the path, none as seeming to be as troubled about it as Wes, but he refused to believe that that meant none of them were troubled.

They were just better at keeping it from affecting them, that's all, Wes reasoned to himself.

When Ralph brought up the rear, Wes sighed as he knew he'd need to head down after Ralph turned around on the first switchback otherwise he'd never hear the end of it. Though, if he needed to, he was sure that he'd just need to find Charlie and she wouldn't get on his case about it. As she didn't seem like that kind of person. Though, the trouble would be if she felt like she still needed to ditch them for whatever reason she had in the first place.

Wes tried to focus on making sure that everything was fine on his descent, but he couldn't stop stray thoughts from entering his mind while he made his way down the cliff. Part of the problem also wasn't the fact that he was worried about falling down, as he was confident his friends would catch him with his magic if needed, but rather the fact that they'd have to climb back up to get back to the summit.

Unless whoever lived in the cabin knew of another way up there that wasn't so dangerous as this path, which Wes couldn't say if that was the case or not. It was possible that there was another way, but it was just as possible that this was the only path. Which meant that even if they wanted to just climb down the mountain, that they'd have to climb back up the switchbacks and risk falling and all that came with that.

Especially since while his friends were occupied with their own descent, or ascent if they did have to climb back up to leave, then they likely wouldn't be paying attention to the others if one of them might fall as they would if they weren't on the switchback themselves.

Of course, Wes knew that it was possible that he was merely overthinking things, but that didn't help much when it came to dealing with his own worries about what could happen and what the results would be from that possibility occurring.

"Keep going," Tim called from down below as Wes reached the first switchback, carefully making his way down the path as it went the other direction.

Wes briefly entertained the idea of jumping and making his friends catch him with their magic, just so the whole ordeal would be over in an instant instead of being dragged out like this. However, he doubted that his friends would be as appreciative of his approach. Especially since it would have put the burden fully on them to keep him from committing suicide by stupidity.

Wes wasn't sure how long it took or really how many times he started going in the opposite direction when he reached the next switchback, but eventually he was back down on the ground, surrounded by his friends.

"See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Tim asked, though Wes detected a slight tremor in his voice that made him suspect that Tim hadn't been as calm about the whole ordeal as he had made himself out to be. Not that it really mattered at this point. Not when they were already at the bottom of the cliffs.

"Well, maybe we should clean those off and maybe look at creating a railing on the side so we're less likely to fall when it's time to leave," Wes replied, not caring to focus on anything else right at that moment. "I mean, unless there's another way out that we can use to get out of here."

"Well, we might as well talk with whoever's living in this cabin," Amelia said cheerfully, turning everyone's attention to the cabin that was the reason they'd climbed down the switchbacks in the first place.

As they walked over to the front door, Ralph quickly took the lead and knocked on the door, as if they were merely visitors who wanted to check on the occupant, rather than wondering who was living up where there wasn't supposed to be anyone else present in the first place.

Wes wasn't sure if he'd have knocked any differently, but the way Ralph knocked, it just felt too casual for the situation. More like they themselves were part of the community that included this cabin rather than strangers.

However, the noise that erupted in response seemed a little over the top to Wes. It sounded like a whole lot of metal had fallen suddenly. Kind of like the gag where a person is surprised and then all the pots and pans they were holding fall to the floor creating a very loud racket.

"Uh, maybe we should go in anyway to see if whoever is living here is all right?" Hannah suggested. "I mean, that sounded pretty bad."

Ralph looked at the others and Wes could only shrug in response. He didn't know one way or the other, but he did think that while it would be rude to just barge in, he doubted that whoever living here was supposed to be here in the first place. Which would explain the loud noise inside when Ralph merely knocked gently.

Testing the door, showed that it was unlocked and Wes wasn't surprised. If your home was hidden where it wasn't supposed to be, of course it would be more of a hassle to lock the door than it would to leave it open so whoever lived here could just come and go as they liked and needed.

As they opened the door, Wes felt shocked at what he saw. He'd expected to see a home inside, but what it turned out to be was something else entirely. As not only was there a bed, small kitchenette, and usable bathroom, but it also looked like the cabin was built into the cliff rather than just up against it. Where the seams of where the cabin connected to the cliff were hard to discern.

Plus, under a pile of metal rods, an older woman lay unconscious.