The air thickens with every step. Blazing heat sears my throat with every step we take. Visibility is so low that I'm still not sure if there are cave walls somewhere or only more canyons. Does the volcanic wasteland continue endlessly? Dungeons have an end, limits. Right?

"What do you think this dungeon is about?" I ask, trying to keep my hands away from the steaming boulders, without losing my balance on the treacherous obsidian shards that cover the path we are walking on. "We haven't seen any monsters yet."

"Some dungeons are like that," wheezes Kenae. She wipes the sweat out of her face. Each drop hisses as it strikes the ground, vanishing in a wisp of steam before it ever has the chance to cool. "They are more about reaching a certain spot and surviving the environment than fighting."

I grunt in response, because speaking too much dries your mouth faster in this heat.

"We should keep our eyes open anyway," interjects Han Ke. I expected him to be half-cooked inside the tin can he is wearing, but he seems fine. He must have some fine enchantments on that armor. "Even then, there always are some monsters. We can't afford to get hurt out of negligence with those guys following us?"

"True," wheezes Enea. She looks like a drenched kitten. Streaks of wet hair cling to her shoulders. Ashy sweat runs down her robes. "Wait! I think I saw them. Monsters."

We tense, instantly. I try to listen through the falling ash. Nothing. There is just the clean whisper of Han Ke's longsword brushing against leather, and the faint, ringing edge as the blade clears the scabbard.

I unsheathe my sword myself, falling into formation at his back and exchanging a look with Kenae, already prepared, facing the other side.

"Where?" she whispers.

"There," answers Enea. "I mean by the molten river," she explains, pointing toward the lava stream that flows gently at the center of the canyon's bottom like a real river would. "I saw something moving."

We stare at the stream for a while without moving.

"Are you sure?" asks Kenae.

Enea gnaws on her lower lip, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not sure, maybe it was just more of that drifting ash."

Something flickers in the corner of my eye.

"No, no! I think I saw it too!" I say. Three pairs of eyes whip toward me. "Emm, I think it's fish."

"Fish?" asks Han Ke, frowning.

"Yeah, look there. They are swimming inside the lava. That's why you can barely see them unless they jump."

And true to my words, one of them jumps and flies through the air in an arc, leaving a trail of molten droplets in his wake that solidify in contact with the air before plunging back into the lava. It was a fish. Well, something fishlike, but with leathery skin instead of scales and glowing red eyes.

We stare at each other.

"Well, it seems we found this dungeon's monsters," I comment. "Is it even worth hunting them?"

"What?" Han Ke blinks and shakes his head as if to wake up from a hallucination. "No, there is no point in losing time. It seems that they won't bother us as long as we stay away from the lava. Let's find some real shelter first, and maybe take care of our stalkers."

"You think Kylo is fine?" asks Enea, looking back at the path we have been following. "He hasn't returned yet."

"Don't worry. He'll be fine," I try to reassure the girl, patting her shoulder. But in truth, I'm starting to worry a bit too. I'm not afraid of someone or something catching and beating him, but what if he fell through some crack into the magma? The terrain is treacherous here.

He has air-step runes, though. He should be fine.

"We can worry about him later," interjects Han Ke. "We need to find a way to escape this heat soon or someone will pass out."

"Kylo know place," he says into my mind.

Enea jumps, emitting a high-pitched cry, like a bird after seeing the snake trying to steal eggs for breakfast. Han Ke stumbles, almost crashing into Kenae.

I roll my eyes. So, the cat spoke to all of us. I feel him climbing up my leg. His claws dig into the fabric of my robe. A familiar weight settles on my left shoulder. Finally, he remembers to dispel his invisibility, startling the others once more. It seems as if he just materialized out of thin air.

"Kylo!" exclaims Enea, rushing toward me, arms first, wide apart as if to embrace him. Her bow rebounds on her back, seemingly forgotten. She stops a step away. Her eyes dart around, taking in the molten river, the black canyon walls. As if she just remembered where we are. "Oh, right." She extends a hand, almost timidly, and pets him on the head. "You are back!" she says. "Huh? How are you so chilly?"

Ash falls around us. Kylo shakes himself as if to dispel it, but it's pointless; his fur has taken a dirty grey hue.

"Your cat can speak?" asks Han Ke. "Right, I think someone told me, but I thought it was a joke."

Kylo tilts his head, glaring at the boy. "Kylo speak, no joke."

"Yeah, sorry, I can hear that." Han Ke gives me a calculating look. I can almost see the gears turning in his head, like clockwork, reassessing. Nobles are scary. He opens his mouth as if to ask something, but then closes it again.

"So, where is that place you found, Kylo? Is it cold there? I'm dying in this heat!" complains Kenae. "You can wonder about why the cat is speaking later."

"True," acknowledges Han Ke. "The cat is speaking. It's a freaking spirit-beast," he adds in a mumble, glancing at me again.

"Place is cave, big cave, long cave. Cave on wall on end other path," explains Kylo.

"Do we need to head back?" I ask. That could be a problem if we stumble into our stalkers unprepared.

"No, not back," denies Kylo, "Cave up ahead."

"I see," I mumble, glancing at him, amazed at how much he managed to explore. Did he forget about shadowing our stalkers? "Let's go then, the sooner I can breathe again, the better."

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Ash falls with increased intensity as we press deeper, further reducing visibility. A strange light filters through the penumbra, bleeding through cracks in the rock. I wonder if there is a hidden sun somewhere behind the clouds that roar ominously in the distance, rolling closer. Maybe not. It would be a fake sun anyway. Right? A mockery.

Kylo guides us further ahead, nudging me with his head while he licks his paws, unfazed by the noise that grows in volume as the ashy clouds blacken the sky. The fake sky. I have to remember that even though it looks real. We advance, in silence, because speaking would be a waste of precious moisture.

An ashflake drifts into my nostrils, making me sneeze and stumble. I feel Kylo's claws pierce into the soft flesh of my shoulder, not to fall off. Kenae catches me and helps me steady myself. I give her a grateful nod, and we continue.

The roars of the clouds are so loud now that we barely hear each other, even when yelling. They echo through the canyon. It feels intentional, a warning, as if the dungeon itself was alive and resented our intrusion. Maybe it's a test of courage, of resolve to press on. I have taken the lead, guided by Kylo's nudges. The path drifts closer and closer to the molten river, then it suddenly turns toward it.

I glance at Kylo. Emm? Does he expect us to cross it? We don't have air-step runes like he has. He nudges me onward, through the noise, through my hesitation, through the swirling ash. Then, I see it. The river flows beneath a sheet of glass here, a dark ice-pane made of frozen silicates instead of water. A natural bridge. Is it safe, though? I stop at the river's edge and crouch down. The path splits here. On one way, it continues, bordering the river without ever crossing it. But on the opposite side of the river, it continues too, toward a dark hole in the wall, hidden under a cloud of steam.

"There cave," explains Kylo. "Hurry, rain come."

The glass is smooth and hot to the touch. It seems brittle. I can see the magma pulsing and flowing beneath it, like the arteries of some vast, slumbering beast.

I share a look with my companions, pointing toward the cave up ahead, then toward the glass. They shrug. I take a tentative step. The glass holds. I take another, standing fully over the river now. It still holds.

"It seems solid," I mouth, even though my voice gets drowned under the noise. "Should we risk it?"

My companions shrug, Enea points toward the cave, Kenae and Han Ke point toward the other path.

I feel a sharp sting on my neck.

Crack, crack-clac, clack, clack-clack.

What was that? What is happening?

It's raining.

Molten drops fall from the sky. They solidify in contact with the relatively cold air and lose their glow before impacting the ground as solid black stones. It's a hailstorm, only that the hail isn't ice, but shards of obsidian the size of chickpeas.

We look at each other, wide-eyed. Hailstones batter my arms. I can barely feel the sting, overwhelmed by the surprise, by the urgency to hide. Blood drifts down my sleeve, drying before it reaches the ground. It flakes away like ash.

"Run!" I mouth, jumping onto the glass. My companions follow me close behind.

The glass groans beneath each step, a deep, resonant sound that seems to echo inside my bones. Hairline cracks spider out from underneath my boots, tiny white veins spreading across the surface. At first, they are faint, no louder than a whisper, but with every shift of weight, the sound sharpens. I hear a brittle pop, over the drowning clack-clack, of pitch-black hailstones battering the even surface. There is another pop, followed by another, until the solidified glass sheet sings with tension.

I'm already halfway across, though. Beneath the translucent layer, the magma stirs, swallowing the light, promising a swift and merciless pull should the glass give way. But I have no time to worry about that. The hail grows in intensity and in size. Each stone is a sharp blade slicing through my robes, cutting my skin. If we don't reach shelter soon, we will get stoned to death.

Crack!

What the heck was that? The glass flexes and trembles, like a drumskin stretched too tight. I look over my shoulder without stopping to run. There is a massive dent in the glass where I just stepped over. Thick white veins spread upward from beneath. From beneath?

I look down into the molten river, into glowing red eyes. Those strange fish are swimming beneath us, eyeing us with interest, mouths wide open, revealing rows and rows of black teeth, sharp and pointy like needles. These aren't the small, armlong monsters we saw before. These are massive, almost thrice as long as I am tall.

I see them circling through the magma under the glass. There are three of them.

One of them darts upward toward Kenae.

Crack!

The whole sheet vibrates from the impact. An explosion of white veins spreads through the glass right where Kenae just passed. She loses her footing and slips, sliding over the surface, closer to the edge where the glass is thinner, through the black hailstones starting to accumulate. The glass pane tilts slightly. Han Ke turns toward her. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her get up again, stumbling, before she runs onward, toward the other side, gesturing to Han Ke not to get closer. A good idea, he is the heaviest one of us by far, with his armor. I'm a bit worried about my other friend. I wonder if those fish can just burst through the thin ice where Kenae runs over anyway.

I can't worry too much about my companions before I get across. Finally, I reach the shore and step onto solid stone. I whirl around, taking a long hunting spear out of my spatial ring. Enea arrives second, just a few steps behind. Kenae is close to, but Han Ke is still far. The idiot has gotten closer to the thin glass following Kenae's steps. A shadow follows him from beneath, accelerating, rushing closer. Shit!

I take a throwing stance, trying to calculate the distance and the speed at which the boy moves. It's hard to follow the trajectory of the monster fish through the distorted lens formed by the glass, like trying to judge distance and speed underwater. Where will it break through? Probably behind the boy. But when?

I tense, ignoring the hail battering my arms. Enea has continued and has almost disappeared behind a cloud of mist covering the cave's entrance. Kenae continues by my side like a silent shadow, eyes frozen on Han Ke.

There! The fish breaks through. It carries so much momentum that it flies over the glass toward Han Ke, maw wide open.

I release the spear with a snap. It flies toward the wide-eyed Han Ke, who stares at me as if I had betrayed him, too surprised to evade. But the spear ignores him and continues over his shoulder, into the wide-open maw of the fish behind him. The fish snaps his maw shut too soon and crashes into the boy from behind, before falling onto the glass itself. The boy gets shot forward over the glass, head over heels. His armor leaves deep scratches on the surface at his wake, but he barely slows down before he crashes into Kenae, toppling her over.

He looks up at me, confusion written on his brow. Then back at the massive fish, flapping on the slowly tilting glass, snapping for air.

He says something, but the hailstorm is too loud to understand anything. I point toward the cave, gesturing to them to hurry. Then I start running without waiting for them. If they can't handle the last stretch alone, they are useless.

I step into the mist, toward a shadow, two shadows moving. They clash and fight for a brief instance, then one of them sags to the ground.

Shit! An ambush? Did those stalkers get here before us? I unsheathe a short-sword and rush closer, into the darkness. Then I relax when I see Enea standing over the corpse of a strange humanoid covered in scales.

"What is that?" I ask. Surprised to be able to hear the sound of my voice. The roar of the hailstorm sounds distant inside here. It's humid, but not that hot. I see a small creek flowing out of the penumbra and toward the entrance, even though it evaporates without reaching far.

"I don't know, some kind of kobold, I think," answers Enea. "Very weak, I think a child could kill it."

Finally, Han Ke stumbles in, carrying a passed-out Kenae. Huh? I didn't realize she was out. She must have lost consciousness when the boy crashed into her.

His wide-open eyes dart around the space, lingering for a second on the corpse. "Huh? A Lizardman." His shoulders unclench. He lowers Kenae against the wall with care. "Phew! That was intense. I didn't even notice that fish. Thanks, Minea, you saved me." He unclasps his dented and twisted greaves, takes a look at them with a sigh, and stores them in his spatial artifact before looking at us. "Lizardmen are easy, though. Their only strength lies in overwhelming numbers. That's probably an explorer. Inside these narrow corridors, they won't be a problem. I could hold back a horde by myself."

"Glad to hear some good news," I say, staring out at the hailstorm. "Do you think our stalkers will survive this?"

"They survive," answers Kylo. "They have lot artifact."

I glance at Kylo. "They have a lot of artifacts?"

"Yes, artifact for hot, artifact for track, artifact for sneaky. But not good sneaky, very bad sneaky, Kylo smell." He sounds almost amused.

I share a look with Enea and Han Ke. It seems targeted. How did they know that we would end up in this strange instance?

"Didn't you say that ninety percent of the time, people enter this dungeon, it's a forest or grassland?" I ask.

"Yes," mumbles Han Ke. "But we can listen to your cat's story and worry about that later. Let's check our wounds first and wait for Kenae to wake up. Those guys will have to find another way to cross the river. The glass pane shattered completely after you left."

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